Mom and Dad Were Right: 4 Life Lessons

Last week, I wrote about “Three Things Your (Gay) Christian Kid Needs to Hear from You,” and I received so many positive responses. Some thanked me for offering simple advice they could apply while raising their children. Others thanked me for being willing to share my story in order to try to make a difference for gay kids. Others wondered how I was confident enough to share such personal things on the Internet, especially through Facebook.

There are many things I cannot say that I believe for sure. There are many things I don’t think we can ever know! But one thing I have grown to understand lately is the concept of a universal “truth.” Augustine said “All truth is God’s truth.” And Paolo Coelho put it a little differently in The Alchemist: “There is a universal language, understood by everybody, but already forgotten.” I am learning that the truths I “discover” (such as last week’s “You Are Enough”) have been understood by people before me, and people before them. They’ve always been true, whether or not they have been discovered or understood. Each generation is charged with finding these truths for themselves, while guiding the next generation in their search to find them. So that's why I'm willing to share my personal stories: If anything I've learned or struggled through can reveal truth to someone else, I want to be willing to open up and share. 

Over the years, my voice teachers taught me many things about singing. But my body wasn’t ready to accept them. My immature vocal cords and lungs simply couldn’t perform the tasks set in front of them. It wasn’t until I hit my 30s that some of these “truths” about singing started to make sense. In lessons now (some 12 years later,) I recall some of the things Andreas Poulimenos told me at BGSU, and I think “OMG! Now I get it!” And I go on to sing the crap out of an aria I could barely finish then!

Here are just a few of the life lessons I learned from my parents. I may not have understood them to be true 20 years ago, but now I do.

NOTHING GOOD HAPPENS AFTER MIDNIGHT

We always rolled our eyes when Dad presented this justification for our curfew. “Dad, come on! Everyone else can stay out til 2am!” At least for me, as the oldest, Dad rarely budged on this. There were only rare exceptions, such as Jr/Sr Banquet (our Christian school version of Prom.) It was in Beijing during the summer of 2008 that I started to own this truth. It was the Olympics. We were working 12 hour days, going out to Olympic events or big dinners (cheap!), bowling and drinking until late at night. And I began to suffer exhaustion. I had to start declining some invitations and protect my sleep. One night my dear friend Leslie tried to convince me to stay out just a while longer, and I laughed as I told her, “Leslie, nothing good happens after midnight.” As she and I chatted a couple days later, she shared that she had begun to realize I was right! We discussed how the drinks after midnight are probably more than the drinks you should be drinking. The conversations after midnight tend to be forgotten, and the next day’s hangover always makes you say “I’m never doing that again.” But we do. On occasion, a late night can be fun, and in Chicago or NYC, a really fun dance bar never really gets going until after midnight, but on the whole, Dad was right.

IF YOU PAY FOR IT, YOU’LL APPRECIATE IT MORE

My parents never had an unlimited supply of money to buy me the Bugle Boy pants or Air Jordans or whatever trend was big at the time. So they told me to get a job! Through high school, when my friends were sleeping in, I was getting up an hour early (OK, my sister always woke me up, because she was better in the mornings) and delivering newspapers to the neighborhood on my bike. There were mornings when I cried because it was raining or snowing; there were times when I wiped out on my bike and went to school bruised, but there was such a feeling of satisfaction when I could take my hard earned cash to Gap or Structure and get a new shirt or a new pair of pants. I learned to shop the sale racks to make my money go further, and I wore those clothes I bought with my own money until they wore out. Sure, Mom and Dad helped with my wardrobe, but if I wanted the brand names that cost twice as much, I had to buy them myself. And I really did appreciate those clothes so much more than I ever could have if Mom and Dad had just opened their wallets with no questions asked. To this day, I have so much pride in the things I accomplish on my own, the cars I’ve bought, the condo in Chicago. I hate borrowing money from anyone, and I repay it quickly. The desire to purchase things for myself taught me a work ethic and a pride in self that is worth so much more than any Bugle Boy pants. (Mom did buy me one pair of Bugle Boys, by the way, and I wore those suckers until they were 3 inches too short, I loved them so much!)

YOU CAN QUIT WHEN YOU’RE GOOD

Dad may not have uttered these exact words, but this lesson was related to my piano lessons. In junior high, I hated my lessons, and I wanted to quit. My parents tried bribery to get me to practice. They said they’d pay me by the minute. And still, I wouldn’t practice. Dad told me I could quit piano when I was good enough to pick up a hymnal and sight-read any hymn. How hard could this be, I thought? I began to practice, and with Mrs. Russell, we picked up a hymnal at every lesson and practiced my sight-reading. By the time I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, I could sight-read most of the hymns I could find. But guess what? By the time I was good enough to quit, I wanted to keep going! (Of course, Dad knew this all along.) I started playing piano for the choir, taking lessons from another teacher to learn jazz, playing keyboard with the pep band, and really enjoying my piano ability. It began to set me apart. In college and grad school, I accompanied voice lessons for other students and got paid for it! I couldn’t believe it! I meet so many people now who tell me they wish their parents hadn’t let them quit piano, or they wish they could play. And it makes me so happy that I stuck with it! The value of making a kid stick with something until they’ve mastered it seems lost in 2012, when we always want kids to be happy and fulfilled and empowered. But the truth is, somewhere down the road, when they have a skill that nobody around them has, they’ll thank you for making them stick it out.

I could go on and on. My parents taught me so many valuable things. Are they human? Yes! Did they make some mistakes and hurt me sometimes? Yes! But the final thing I learned from my parents may be the most important, and the one that touches me the most:

YOU CAN ALWAYS COME HOME

Dad says this when I call to discuss vacation plans with him. I’ve taken to renting a cottage with friends for Labor Day Weekend, while my family still takes their traditional trip to Mackinaw, Michigan. “You can always come to Mackinaw,” he says. When I got out of college, they said “You can always come home.” And I moved back in with my parents for a year. My mom did my laundry! When I returned from Beijing without a job, “You can always come home.” I moved home for 2-3 weeks while I interviewed for jobs in Chicago and waited for my condo tenants to move out. When I don’t have plans for Thanksgiving, “You can always come home.” Sometimes they offer gas money, or to split a flight, or throw in a little guilt trip about how long it’s been since I visited, but the message has always been clear: I can always go home. There’s always a bed for me in Millbury, OH. This is such a wonderful feeling. Whatever differences I may have with my parents, and yes, we do have our differences, I know that I am always welcome in their home, where there will be home-cooked meals, Jello with marshmallows, family gatherings with fires in the fireplace, good-natured teasing, craft projects on the kitchen table, a full refrigerator, freshly-baked cookies, multiple dogs, and lots of love!