Trafford Publishing: Life's Lessons from a Father to his Daughter

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Life's Lessons from a Father to his Daughter

by Bob Grossmann, PhD

100 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0629; ISBN 1-4120-0260-5; US$16.95, C$24.95, EUR16.30, £11.30

Life's Lessons from a Father to his Daughter uses twenty-four stories as an avenue for parents to share their personal philosophies with their children. The book is designed to help parents teach better decision-making to their children.

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About the Book

Life's Lessons from a Father to his Daughter uses twenty-four stories, pictures and artwork to help teach our children life's lessons with the aim of helping our children learn to make good decision-making skills. Decision-making skills are often not well taught or integrated into a strong sense of personal philosophy. Human nature can be impulsive.
The use of stories (real life or metaphors) to pass on life lessons from one generation to another is at the core of our oral and written traditions. Parents can help to pass on this information as a creative way to install core values, help reduce the chance of mishap, and enhance lifelong success.
Part of the challenge is establishing a dialogue that allows worldviews to be discussed: both the commonalties and the differences. Perhaps part of the failure to achieve a sustained dialogue is that we as parents wait too long to start the dialogue.
Part of the challenge, too, is that the lessons have different levels of meaning as we age. So Life's Lessons from a Father to his Daughter was written to have meaning at the different stages of life: in one's mid-teens, mid-twenties, and again in mid-life. Value exists in the stories being real. Non-fiction can carry more weight. Children need to learn early that their parents continue to go through what they are experiencing. We, too, make mistakes, that we try and fail, and we are both individuals and members of larger communities.
All the increasing access to information may not make decision-making easier. Greater discrimination and better choices will be essential. So, read the vignettes with your children and see where the discussion goes. Be sure to have a few good laughs along the way! Life's Lessons from a Father to his Daughter is a tool to help parents communicate with their children by providing a context for parents to add their own personal stories.

About the Author

Bob Grossmann is a local artist and writer in Honolulu, Hawaii. Dr. Grossmann received his doctorate degree from the University of Hawaii in political science and currently is raising funds to sponsor after school art programs for intermediate and high school students. He has lived and worked in France, Italy, the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and West Africa. His policy work and writing stresses the need for teaching decision-making skills that are based on the development of a strong personal philosophy. Dr. Grossmann's twenty years of teaching and community service, primarily in the area of public health and biological resources, has incorporated community empowerment, ethics and social responsibility. His life's experiences shared through the book's stories share a broad cultural viewpoint. He is married to Dr. Geri Marullo, who was the CEO of the American Nurses Association in Washington, D.C. and currently serves as the President & CEO of Child and Family Service (a private, non-profit human service organization in Hawaii). Our greatest gift was the adoption of our daughter, Maya Makana, in 1993. She is an aspiring marine biologist and veterinarian.

Sample Excerpts

Contents

Introduction
#1: Humility Versus Humiliation
#2: Traveling Light: An Approach To Simplify Life
#3: Being A "Real" Daddy
#4: Writing Can Be Joyful; Be Willing To Share Your Thoughts
#5: Risk Taking: When To & When Not To? That Is The Question
#6: Keeping One's Creative Spirit Alive
#7: Ingredients That Help Build "Quality" Into Life
#8: You Need To Know When To Ask For Help
#9: The Difference Between Competition & Self-Exploration
#10: Dimensions Of Assertiveness
#11: Teaching Versus Lecturing
#12: Sharing One's Gifts With Others
#13: Always Work With Something You Love, Even If Not In Your Job Description
#14: Facing Life's Challenge Of Achieving Financial Security
#15: Learning The Art Of Conversation
#16: Learn To Pace Yourself To Avoid Burnout
#17: Speaking One's Mind
#18: Doing Your Best Work Versus Striving for Perfection
#19: Being Your Own Best Friend
#20: The Difference Between Good & Bad Stress
#21: Helping Your Dad Learn Life Lessons, Too
#22: Compensation, Compassion, & Caring Can Spring From Misfortune
#23: Knowing When & How To Extricate Yourself From Situations You Shouldn't Be In & Really Didn't Want To Be In
#24: Learning To Die With Grace & Dignity
Epilogue

Introduction

Why is it such a challenge to teach our children the major life lessons without their having to go through the pain of each lesson themselves? One reason is that good decision-making skills are often not well taught, or integrated into a strong sense of personal philosophy. Human nature can be impulsive. Sometimes, too, one can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The use of stories (real life or metaphors) to pass on life lessons from one generation to another is at the core of our oral and written traditions. Parents can help to pass on this information as a creative way to install core values, help reduce the chance of mishap, and enhance lifelong success.

Part of the challenge is establishing a dialogue that allows worldviews to be discussed: both the commonalties and the differences. Perhaps part of the failure to achieve a sustained dialogue is that we as parents wait too long to start the dialogue. I remember that I started talking with my daughter about the health impacts of smoking when she was not even two years old. Media images had already taught her to puff on something pretending to be smoking, even before she knew what smoking was all about. She knew a few years later that both her grandfather and great-grandfather had died from the habit.

Part of the challenge, too, is that the lessons have different levels of meaning as we age. So Life's Lessons from a Father to his Daughter was written to have meaning at the different stages of life. I will urge my daughter to read it when she is in her mid-teens, mid-twenties, and again in mid-life. I will also suggest that she read my stories to her children. I believe value exists in the stories being real. Non-fiction can carry more weight. Children need to learn early that their parents continue to go through what they are experiencing. We, too, make mistakes, that we try and fail, and we are both individuals and members of larger communities.

All the increasing access to information may not make decision-making easier. Greater discrimination and better choices will be essential. So, read these vignettes with your children and see where the discussion goes. Be sure to have a few good laughs along the way! Life's Lessons from a Father to his Daughter is a tool to help parents communicate with their children by providing a context for parents to add their own personal stories.

Humility Versus Humiliation

When you were five, we enjoyed telling stories at bedtime. One of your favorites was about my time in West Africa. We would list the story topics and try to remember the entire list before choosing the one for the night. Many were about snakes both large and small. But one - the pig story - made us both laugh. Do you remember?

The story begins the day after my birthday. I was just twenty-three years old plus a day. Well, to make a long story shorter, a bird flew into my face that morning as I was riding on my motorcycle. Muscles in both shoulders were badly torn requiring each arm to be strapped for several weeks to allow healing. It was also the rainy season. The rain had been relentless. The roads had deep troughs filled with water, deep enough in places to allow the pigs to wallow. Pigs were the only animals that could survive the black fly and the sleeping sickness.

The first week passed slowly and painfully, but by the second week, I was going stir-crazy and had to go for a walk. My home at the time was a small fishing village of several hundred people. My humble abode faced the lake. Gingerly stepping one foot in front of the other, both arms strapped to my chest with ace bandages, I finally gained the few hundred yards that would take me out of the village. My success then brought me to a spell of road with parallel, deep ruts that had been pig heaven for days. That section of road dropped off on both sides making the only passage along the thin slippery, middle ground. The slip came fast. Not being able to put my hands down to brake the fall, I went face first into the sour, fetid mud like a felled tree.

The rut was deep enough to cover my entire head and almost over my back as well. Things were not yet funny. In fact, I had so much mud in my nose, mouth and eyes that I couldn't breathe or see. My only instinct was to crawl forward like an inchworm and try to use the slight slope to roll onto my back. Having managed this, the process continued on my back for several minutes before I could finally reemerge to a sitting position and then standing. I was a terrible sight. But, little did I know that I would learn the definitions of both humiliation and humility during the tortuous walk back through the village and the eventual clean up in the minutes ahead.

Do you remember the part that made us laugh the most? I had explained that village life consisted of doing one's chores, usually sitting out by the front of one's hut. So, the villagers were repairing fishing nets, preparing meals, bathing their children and so forth. But, everyone was out and everyone was just shaking his or her head and trying not to laugh as this mud-covered creature walking along the single central path down to the lake and to my house. But when trying so hard not to laugh, when the laughter came, it was spontaneous and wild.

I remember it, at the time, being the most humiliating moment of my life. Fortunately, in that respect, after another twenty-three years, it still is. The lesson, although painful, definitely taught me to laugh at myself. Life throws us these unexpected curve balls from time to time. Yet, the lesson continued because due to my injuries, I was not able to clean myself up. So I had to ask for help to remove my clothing, to fetch water from the well, and to even be washed. Several of the children came to my rescue. I had to defer to them. I felt meek and humble, but I was also most grateful. In addition to being clean again, I had been taught the subtle yet very important distinction between humility and humiliation.

Such experiences should not stop us in our tracks (in this particular case, a very stinky and muddy track), but help us to learn to laugh at our own expense and to understand better all the dimensions that make us human and link us to the forces of nature. Also, at times when we feel humiliation "clear all the way to the bone," that we have an opportunity to understand what it takes to be humble and to approach life with an appropriate level of modesty. It could have been worse: the ruts could have been filled with pigs!

Risk Taking: When To & When Not To? That Is The Question

Humans are generally adverse to risk-taking. Still, understanding when to take them and when it's best not to is critical. In other words, what is just fear and how far is the real fall? The distinction is clear from my (mis)adventure climbing ocean cliffs abutting the Isle of Man off the coast of Scotland in my early twenties. Details are beginning to crumble away, much as the loose rock and soil did that foggy day. Yet the visceral memories are clear. Looking back, from two decades of further experience, that morning should have earned me a Darwin award for utter foolishness; this award is given to those who accidentally kill themselves in a most foolish way.

The decision didn't start as a dare. It just happened. I had gone to visit friends from Scotland, and maybe I can blame the poor judgment on the copious amounts of homemade beer or the poor night's sleep from their daughter's crying spells. Also, we had cut peat the day before which may sound romantic to one from sunnier climes, but after a morning of surviving peat cutting in a trench filled with near freezing water, one gets into a state of mind where anything is possible. What I had not anticipated is the fact that being completely inexperienced in rock climbing, going in one direction may lead to the impossibility of getting back the way you came. Life's paths are often the same.

So, after progressing some 30 feet along the coast and 15 vertical feet from the rocks below, I felt nothing short of utter panic. I could not go down, left or right. Going up seemed feasible, but any further height would risk certain death. The thought did cross my mind and the burst of adrenaline worked to the point of reaching the grass lip 60 feet up. I was rescued by literally being pulled over the cliff by fellow hikers who had the sense to watch. So what is the lesson or lessons?

Climbing a rock face without some regard for a fall is just plain stupid and definitely in the category of death-defying stunts. Even daredevils plan for contingencies. Where was common sense that morning? That is the question that still lingers after all these years! Yet underlying is the larger question about learning to think about risk taking "consciously" and developing the ability to question whether the risk is worth taking: what can be gained and what may be lost? Other risks do not "play out" quite so quickly if things go bad; other risks involve trusting someone else.

One should listen to the tinkle of the warning bell that often goes off just before taking the stupid spontaneous risk. Hence, learn to trust your intuition. Can you handle the downside? Weighing risks is a learned skill. Work at it, but also learn to be decisive and learn to live with your decisions. Driving a car with bad brakes is not a risk worth taking, but maybe making a change (risking career or financial stability) in one's life to accommodate one's passions can lead to a happier life. Taking a risk usually involves living with less: less money, less control, less stability. Invest in yourself. Push the edges of your creativity (and beyond), which may be the most rewarding of all risk.

Catalogue Information