Читать книгу The Immortality of Influence: - Cecil Murphey - Страница 9

As a single parent, my wonderful mother raised eight children. For her, the children always came first, and we never doubted that fact. That was her philosophy and that’s how she lived. She never had a driver’s license or owned a car. I never heard her talk about buying new clothes or anything else for herself. It was always, “What do my children need?”

That’s what good parents do: They make sacrifices for their children. I write this chapter because I hope that others, especially young people, will understand their most important job when they become adults: to be good parents. That won’t be easy. They have to learn to put their families first. When they provide that kind of commitment, they can also exert the most positive parental influence. Another factor—and one they often don’t realize—is how much their attitudes affect their children’s behavior.

Too few people realize the extreme power of parental influence. More than anyone else, parents have the opportunity to provide a strong, healthy effect on their own children. It’s important that we want to raise our children in a family setting. Our children shouldn’t be born and raised in settings where they’re separated from their parents. How many children will have to be left to be raised by relatives, neighbors, or friends before we decide to do something to save our children?

As an educator in the inner city, I’ve seen too many instances of parents who leave their children temporarily—or so they say—and they never come back to claim them. I can’t imagine what life would have been like for me if my mother had left me in someone else’s care and hadn’t visited me for weeks or months. Even worse, I can’t conceive of leaving my children with someone else. It’s unthinkable to me to place myself in a situation where I might never see my two children again.

This abandonment of our children is at an epidemic level, and must stop. In some instances, it’s not physical desertion, but emotional. Sometimes one or both parents are present, yet neither one shows any significant interest in the children and their education. That’s a different kind of desertion.

Every child needs two parents, and I wish that could always be the case. Without question, it’s tough raising children in single-parent homes. In my role as an educator, mentor, and parent, I often see the results of our fatherless society. Because I grew up in a single-parent home myself, I know what children go through. I’ve suffered greatly from the lack of a positive father figure. If not for the grace of God and the strength and determination of my mother, Amena, I might have been in trouble as a younger man or could be homeless today.

Many of the children I work with grow up in environments that do nothing to help them grow or live productive lives. Some have parents who seem barely able to tolerate them or who would rather do something else than give them attention and guidance. The children don’t get to choose the environments in which they’re raised. I probably can’t do much to help their home situations, but I’d like to influence them to become positive role models when they take on the responsibility of parenthood themselves.

I commend all young people who have overcome the challenges of being raised in single-parent homes or who have been raised in homes where they don’t feel loved and wanted—and there are many. I admire those single parents who sacrifice so much to raise their children. That’s an awesome job and a tremendous responsibility.

Although many women and men do an outstanding job as single parents, there are definite disadvantages to being forced to raise children alone. The research is conclusive that children who grow up in homes with both parents:

 Are less likely to be single parents themselves.

 Are more likely to get educated.

 Have a greater chance to get married and stay married.

 Will more likely live longer.

 Have a greater opportunity to be more successful financially.

 Are less likely to commit suicide.

 Are less likely to need to fight addictions, especially alcoholism.

For such positive outcomes to occur, there must be a focus and a goal to raise our children in wholesome family environments. For those of us who are parents—or who will become parents—it is imperative that we find a way to foster that positive environment for every child.

I don’t want to imply that there aren’t traditional families who are dysfunctional. Most of us probably know of two-parent families that are chaotic, abusive, and destructive. I refer to good, wholesome two-parent homes where the parents are members of and attend church; they take their children with them instead of sending them alone or with neighbors. Any number of research projects have shown that children who go to church or some other religious institution with their parents have a higher chance of success in life. Those statistics are especially significant for blacks, because many of our children will grow up in single-parent homes or in two-parent homes prone to violent behavior.

If we can influence children now, even if they grow up with only one parent or live in dysfunctional situations, they can overcome the negatives, marry, raise healthy families, and become successful. It can happen. It does happen, but it doesn’t happen often enough. We must believe that a healthy home situation can be a reality for every person, young and old. The most important goal should be to break the cycle of poverty.

In addition to demonstrating the success of families who attend church, the research also shows that these parents are more likely to remain married. Religion and faith are important, and this is especially true when we raise a family.

Many adults commonly drift from the church during their teen years and the early stages of their marriage. After the birth of their children, they often remember how important the religious environment was for them. “I wasn’t sure I believed all of that anymore,” one man in my church said, “but I knew that my early religious instruction kept me on the straight road. I wanted that for my children.”

He and his wife returned to church and took their children with them. He said, “Becoming a parent motivated me to straighten out my life. I decided I wanted to give my children the best education I could. Can there be any better education than getting them into the church where they can learn right from wrong and how to care about other people?” Today, he’s a strong believer and an active elder.

Our faith is—or can be—a strong part of how we influence our own children. How disheartening it is to realize that so many young people who grow up in single-parent homes or with dysfunctional families have no template for a successful home environment. They tend to believe that their abnormal situation is normal, and they perpetuate the cycle of violence and poverty. We can’t allow that to continue to happen. It is long overdue for us to help them understand and to say, “Yes, you are growing up in poverty but you can still live a healthy, successful life. And we want to help you.”

I often tell my female students, “When you get older and are ready to date (they moan when I say they are too young to date) and a young man approaches you for your phone number and a date, you tell him, ‘I’ll give you my phone number. But while I’m writing my number down, I need you to solve a quadratic equation and factor a polynomial.’ (Our girls learned to solve algebra problems as elementary students.) ‘And if you can’t do it, why don’t you call me after you’ve graduated from college?’”

I usually finish my take on their future mates with advice I borrowed from my good friend Dr. Lee Jones, Dean of the College of Graduate Education at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. “If the young man who seeks your acquaintance is not on his way, then he is in your way!”

I also tell them, “If you’re going to be seriously involved with someone, you need to look at that person and ask yourself, ‘Is he going to be a good husband? Is he going to be a good father?’ Raise your expectations. Don’t settle for whoever comes along. Hold out for the best.”

That portion of my course is usually given to them when they reach high school, but I can’t wait until ninth grade to stress the importance of education and examples of good parenting.

In middle school, I point to myself and ask, “What is my most important job?”

“To be a good principal” is usually the first response.

I shake my head and wait.

It may take three or four answers, but they finally get it. “Yes! That’s right. My most important job is to be a good father to my children.”

I don’t stop there. I also say, “We can’t ignore the importance of our relationships with our families and how we influence our children. Our relationships with our church, our pastor, and people in the community affect how we influence our children.”

In his autobiographical novel The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini beautifully expresses the realization of a parent’s imprint. Amir and his father (whom he calls Baba) left Afghanistan a quarter of a century earlier when Amir was barely in his teens and moved to California. When Baba dies of cancer, members of the Muslim community come to the mosque to pay their respects. They tell Amir how much they appreciated his father and how deeply he influenced their lives.

I smiled politely, thanked them for their wishes, listened to whatever they had to say about Baba.

“…helped me build the house in Taimani…”

“…bless him…”

“…no one else to turn to and he lent me…”

“…like a brother to me…”

Listening to them, I realized how much of who I was, what I was, had been defined by Baba and the marks he had left on people’s lives. My whole life, I had been “Baba’s son.” Now he was gone. Baba couldn’t show me the way anymore; I’d have to find it on my own.²

An effective parent-child relationship is grounded in the awareness of the outside influences that our children receive. Consider some of those powerful pressures such as television, music, videos, movies, and the Internet—all those media can send good messages, but they can also send harmful messages to our young people. Let’s ask ourselves, “How can we move back to the way things were twenty years ago when the primary motivators for our children were family, the church, and school?”

There is no simple, easy answer, but we can get back to soundly proven family values. Pulling our children into the safety of the family must be the cornerstone of our parental influence.

I frequently tell my students as well as my own daughter: “You want a good picture of yourself? The best way to do that is to look at your friends. Simply look into their eyes. Listen to the way they talk. Look at the type of friends you have and the people you want to be around. Think about the things they do and you’ll understand the type of person you are.”

My point is this: Good people have good friends. If the family is healthy, they’ll help you attract the right kind of friends. That’s another one of the things good parents do—guide their children’s choice of friends.

When we examine the matter of parental impact, we must ensure that we give our children wise advice and encourage them to have the right kind of friends. I say the same thing to parents that I say to the children in our school: “You want a good picture of yourself? Look at your friends. Are the colleagues you bring to your home the type of people you want your children to see as role models? Are your friends the kind of people you want your children to be around, to follow, and to imitate? If you bring the wrong kind of friends around, you are saying to your children, ‘Who you associate with doesn’t matter.’”

It does matter. We become like the people we’re around the most. An excellent example is to look at smoking in the home. Even first-grade children know that smoking isn’t healthy. If their parents smoke, even though they know the dangers, children will have a tendency to smoke as well. By the time they’re in middle school, their friends influence them. If their friends smoke—no matter how much they’ve been taught verbally that smoking is an addictive habit—they will likely become smokers. Friends matter. Friends shape our behavior. The role models our friends have at home not only shape their behavior, but affect us as well, since the influence of these role models filters through our friends and reaches us.

I’ve struggled to convince my daughter that she watches too much television. By being aware of her TV habits, I’ve been forced to scrutinize my own bad habit of watching so much television. Although most of what I watch is either news or sports, I’m still her role model. If I’m going to have a positive influence on her TV habits, I need to demonstrate the right behavior as well as talk about it.

If parents lovingly guide their children’s selection of friends, they can save disappointment and heartaches later. If they are healthy role models and their friends are also good role models, they will strongly impact their children’s outcome in life.

As parents, we need to teach these lessons early. Think of it this way: Every teacher is not a parent, but every parent is a teacher. The parent is the first teacher every child encounters. The first classroom a child will ever sit in is the mother’s womb. We must understand the power of early environments. Children require advice and examples from parents on how to relate to others. They learn from observing the way adults behave when parents don’t know they’re being watched. Children learn from us how to interact properly with other males and females. As parents, we will teach our children, whether or not we’re aware. Our examples teach them about male-female interaction. They’ll learn about our values and attitudes from our actions, even more so than from our words. We set the pattern for them. This places a strong responsibility on us and forces us to realize the significance of our role as parent-teachers.

Children can learn so much from their fathers. Specifically, they observe the way men treat and respect the women in their lives. This is perhaps one of the most important lessons that fathers teach, though we don’t seem to emphasize its impact. If the boys see disrespect, that’s the pattern the boys will follow. If the girls see it, that’s the pattern of behavior they will expect. As Henry Ward Beecher said more than a century ago, “The best way to love your children is to love their mother.”

We need to teach young people that violence is always wrong. Think about how O. J. Simpson’s life would be different had he mastered that lesson early on as a young man. The same is true if we examine the life of the boxer Mike Tyson or the professional basketball player Kobe Bryant. In their court cases, both men denied they had sexually abused women, but they never disputed they had been violent with women. All three men, who were fathers and husbands, might have led different personal lives if they had learned early on that violence is never an option.

We can start turning our children against violence by teaching them about fairness. Life isn’t always equitable, but they should learn always to be fair even if others don’t treat them the same way.

When I began to write this book, my older daughter, Macawi, was four years old. Almost from the time she was born, I began to talk to her about being fair, showing respect, and being humble. One time I tried to explain about being humble. We talked about a situation and I asked, “Is it all about you?”

“No, it’s not all about me, it’s about you, Daddy.”

“No, it’s not about me either,” I said.

She tried to figure out the right answer, but she still didn’t have it. I wanted her to learn about the importance of improving the world, about making a difference in the lives of others, and about encouraging and empowering others. We live in such a “me-centered society” and it poisons our kids. We need to reverse that and change the world we live in. We must help our children learn to give themselves to a life of service. People who do only for themselves just make it in life; those who do for others get ahead!

“Do something for somebody every day for which you do not get paid.” Those are the words of Albert Schweitzer.

“The more I help others to succeed, the more I succeed,” said Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s.

Those are two of my favorite quotations because they underscore the essence of service.

We have to “be there for our children.” I hear that expression often, but I’m not sure most parents understand the true meaning of these words. In order to “be there” for our children, we need to be there. Being physically present and preoccupied with work or other problems isn’t being there for them. Being present means to be available—listening, teaching, role-modeling, or having time for them to simply come and sit in our laps. That’s being there. It’s never too early to talk to our children, but sometimes it can be too late.

When I speak about the power of parents, I often tell my audiences how my father didn’t live with us, contributed very little to our support, and never visited any of the schools where I was a student. He never came to any of my basketball games and he never attended the plays in which I was involved. My dad didn’t come to my high school or college graduation.

I held out hope that he would attend my wedding. I even selected an outfit and shoes for him, but he did not attend. He had disappointed me most of my life because of his absence, but I hoped—and I prayed—that he would at least come to my wedding. It really hurt me when he didn’t attend and he never explained.

My dad’s absence left a big void in my life—a void I still feel. Even today, as a parent myself, I still wish he could have been there. He’s dead, so that’s not possible, but I realize I needed my father more than I ever thought I did.

I’m not alone. Thousands of other kids have missed out as I did by not having a father present. My mother was always there for those events and I’m grateful, but she couldn’t completely compensate for his absence.

As young people, we want our fathers to be present in our lives and to be involved in what we do. I make a special plea for fathers because so many of us men are absent. Our children need to see positive male role models early in life. Not being there is not something we can make up for later.

If you’re a parent, my message to you is this: Be there. Spend time with your children. Time is so important and you’ll have only a few years to make your imprint on them. If you are not there to teach them, someone else will. That someone else may lead your children in the wrong direction.

Besides being there for them and teaching them, as parents we need to listen to our children. I’m amazed at how few parents stop to listen when their children are asking for their attention.

In her autobiography, My Life So Far, Jane Fonda tells about a time her father was reading a book. She sat down beside him with her own book. For more than an hour, not a word passed between them. At one point, she began to laugh at something she had just read. He paid no attention to her. No matter what she did, she could get no response from her father.

Throughout her life story, Jane Fonda bemoans the fact that her father was rarely around. Even when he was physically present, he was emotionally absent. Her father, Henry Fonda, was considered one of the great stage and film stars of the last century. Maybe he was a great actor, but his children didn’t think he was a great father.

As I read the book, the point became even more powerful that parents need to listen to their children. We not only need to hear what they say to us, but need to listen to the way they talk to their siblings and their friends. We need to respond and let them know that we hear their concerns and appreciate them.

My advice: Allow your children to talk and express how they feel about events in their lives and the people with whom they’re in contact. Let them talk to you about their feelings toward others. As you listen, you can begin to understand the types of interactions they have with peers and adults. As soon as they are able to talk—even when their communication is limited to mostly gestures—you need to listen. If we don’t listen to our children when they’re young, they won’t listen to us when they’re older.

Even though you’re a parent, think of this from the perspective of your children. If they have to grab you and beg you to listen to them, what message are you giving them? Aren’t you saying they’re not important—that they don’t deserve your time and your interest?

The worst thing children can say about a parent is, “My mom (or dad) doesn’t care.” Those words may not always be verbalized, and they may not be true, but the thought comes from their perception based on their parent’s behavior. However, to listen—to truly listen—can make a vast difference. The attention you give your children tells them they are important to you. You show your love by your presence and attention. You do make a difference—a big difference—in the quality of your children’s lives.

By contrast, we read of terrible tragedies involving violence perpetrated by children. Two immediate examples are the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, and one later in Red Wing, Minnesota. In the latter episode, a young man killed ten people. We learned later that in both situations, the shooters had talked to their friends about their problems and their plans to deal with them, but they had never discussed their pain with their parents. According to the news media, the parents were shocked; they didn’t have a clue about the angst and anger their sons felt.

I’m not trying to judge the parents and I don’t think they were terrible people. In fact, they were probably typical parents who worked hard and dealt with family issues every day—people like you and me. But if they had listened—and if thousands of other parents had listened—similar tragedies could have been prevented. We assume those tragedies happen only in the inner city, but Columbine wasn’t a poor community and it certainly wasn’t the inner city.

It’s easy to say that these problems are “out there” and forget that violent incidents can and do happen in middle-class and even upper-class neighborhoods. Regardless of their income or location, parents struggle everywhere.

Similar tragic events happen all over our nation and the issues affect everyone. Just by simply listening—daily—to our children, we can make a difference in their lives and in their futures.

One of the best things we can do as parents is to use our influence to help our children learn how to express anger without violence. Anger is not bad and children need to recognize that it’s a normal emotion. They also need to grasp that they don’t have to retaliate or act out of their anger. They learn it best if they observe their parents model healthy, nonviolent behavior—and thus guide and show them how to cope with anger and avoid violence. Our children need to see that they can talk it out, walk it out, or channel that anger in a positive direction. Children can use that emotion to drive them to work harder in school or at home, or simply to avoid similar stressful situations.

We could prevent many cases of spousal abuse if we helped young men early in life to learn that violence isn’t the answer when they’re angry. Aggressive behavior happens because it’s the only pattern they know: Anger for them means violence with their words, their fists, or sometimes with weapons. Why? The most obvious reason is because that’s the example they’ve witnessed in their own lives.

We can save more young lives if parents make it a point to provide an environment where our children can feel comfortable in talking to us.

Let’s look at this from another perspective. An abundance of research shows that young people in poor communities live in homes that have fewer than one book per home. By contrast, children in more affluent, middle-class and upper-class communities live in homes with a minimum of two hundred books.

I remember growing up and seeing my mother’s home filled with books. It seemed as if almost every weekend we were at garage sales to buy books or used furniture sales looking for more bookcases. Although my mother had never had access to any of that research about the number of books in a home, she knew the importance of reading. She recognized that the pursuit of knowledge and striving for excellence were the roads she wanted each of her children to travel.

Because she created a home filled with books—all books that she read—my mother not only had a powerful impact on me, but also made me realize the importance of reading and education. Having those encyclopedias and other books in our house spoke as much to me as her words.

I want to carry on my mother’s legacy. I read to both my five-and two-year-old daughters. They know some of the stories so well they finish the sentences for me.

My five-year-old knows the titles of all the books in her room and there are quite a few. She knows the characters very well. If I try to skip a paragraph, she says, “No, no, Daddy, you missed some.” I love that.

I want that kind of experience for every child in America. I want to see every student in our country reading at grade level or above. At least 90 percent of our prison population never read at grade level when in school. For children to learn to read well, we need to teach them early in life how to read and to comprehend what they read.

That’s the influence my mother had on me. Because of her example and influence, I grew up with a love for reading. She never told me I needed to read as much as she showed by her example and encouragement. She took me to various lectures, museums, and other places of culture. She frequently talked to me about books. When I was a boy, she’d tell me an exciting story and then say, “Now go read about it and learn more on your own…”

Yes, I learned to love to read because of the influence of my mother. She passed away in 2002. When she died, she left me the greatest gift in the world: I received her entire book collection, and I’ll always treasure it. I still read and reread those timeless classics. I will make sure those books are passed on to my own children, to the other children in our family, and someday to their children. That’s what should happen with knowledge and the love of reading.

It should be a family tradition—the passing on of books and a love for reading. What greater, more powerful gift could a parent give? The family needs to be engaged in literacy and to encourage others to pursue education and a love of learning. Reading should be a family habit.

My mother’s influence wasn’t only in reading. She was constantly active in the community. Although she never liked politics, she became involved because she knew that was one way she could make a difference in our community. She became active on a local committee, and before long, she became the block organizer in our neighborhood. We lived in the projects and then in low-income public housing—all inside the inner city of Philadelphia—and she had to work hard to support eight children. My mother had every excuse to avoid personal involvement.

She exposed me to various communities and cultures. Even more, while I was still in elementary school, my mother took me with her to visit events on college campuses. Mom wanted me to experience diverse situations and cultures because she knew that if I learned the values and history of others, I would naturally become more aware of my own culture.

Part of the exposure was to teach me never to look down on anyone as being inferior or of lesser importance. By her life—her influence—she also taught me that learning to love others would make me a better person and allow me to realize the contribution I could make to the larger world.

She was a single parent, but that didn’t slow her down. In fact, she helped me appreciate the strengths of women. By observing the mothers in our neighborhood, and their influence in the community, I grasped what women go through trying to raise children, provide an income, get an education, and maintain an active role in the community.

My mother’s hands were full. I wasn’t the only child. In fact, I’m a twin and one of the last-born in our family of eight children. Mom did everything she could to give all of us the best education possible.

When we were children, she always took us to church, and not just on Sunday. We were there on Saturday for various church events. We were there for Bible study. Anytime our church needed volunteers, Mom had us there. We didn’t resent it because she helped us see that it was a privilege to serve.

After I became an adult, I recognized my responsibility to be involved in the church and the community. Whatever or wherever the community, I was to be involved and supportive. That was the expectation and influence of my mom.

My mother supported my teachers and the school. Whenever I came home and complained about a teacher, she would give me the same stern look. For some reason I was sure she would defend me and stand with me against my mean teachers.

“What did you do to upset the teacher?”

“Nothing.”

“And she got mad at you? For no reason? What did you do before she became upset?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me what happened.”

It took a few minutes, but eventually she would find out why the teacher was upset. She would also show me that usually it had been my fault. If I had caused the problem, she would give me no sympathy. If she had felt a teacher had mistreated me, she would stand up for me.

As a principal, I wish there were more parents like my mother.

Often I think about that when I have parents who come into my school after their children go home and complain, “The principal disciplined me and he also gave me a detention.”

More than a few parents never ask the children what they did wrong. They rarely call us on the phone and ask, “What did my child do to deserve this?” Instead, they march to the school, filled with anger, and demand to see me or the teacher responsible. “Why did you discipline my child?”

Many times I’ve had parents say to me, “I don’t like your discipline program.”

“If your program was working,” I respond, “I wouldn’t have to use mine.”

Sometimes those parents yell at me. I’ve had a number of them walk out angry and a few have threatened me. Not all of them act that way and some of those parents listen. When they want to know what happened and not just to vent anger, things change. They’re the parents who care about their children—really care—and want them to get the best possible education.

I want people to understand that parenting is important. Almost any man can father a child; almost any woman can bear a child. It requires much more to be a good parent.

Think of it this way: The message that parents give to their children is the message those children take to the rest of the world. If parents express violent anger, feel frustrated, and see little good in the world, their children don’t have much chance to develop a different view.

I don’t want to bash parents. I have known many wonderful, caring, wise, and teachable parents in all the schools where I’ve worked. The chess and math programs would never have succeeded if it hadn’t been for strong parental involvement and support. My Second Chance Program was for kids who got into trouble and was an opportunity for them to change their attitudes. When their parents worked with me, those kids changed.

We have a wonderful parent-supported reading program called the 100 Book Challenge. My former boss, Gaeton Zorzi, and his wife designed and initiated the program. Thousands of schools across the nation now subscribe to this wonderful, challenging program. We involve every child in our program, even those in preschool and kindergarten. The goal is to have every child read at grade level. All of them don’t make it, but most of them do. The teachers push the 100 Book Challenge, but it succeeds best when the parents work with us. When parents properly support effective reading programs, their children will be successful.

Bill Cosby and several other celebrities received a lot of criticism when they spoke out about parents falling down on the job and not taking responsibility for their children. I understood what they were saying but I also think we need to commend those parents who struggle financially, and yet they somehow find a way to provide a home and do an excellent job of raising their children. They see failure and struggle daily just as I do, but they continue to fight for their children.

Cosby later said he wished he had said that many parents are doing a great job. I hope he was serious, because I am serious when I say I’ve worked with many wonderful mothers and fathers. Sometimes we educators see so much bleakness, failure, and death, we spend a lot of time crying out. It’s easy for us to overlook those faithful, wonderful parents.

Being a parent is tough, but no one ever said it would be easy. I firmly believe that parenting is the best job in the world. Senator Hillary Clinton convinced many people that the entire village is the answer when it comes to raising a child. I beg to differ on some aspect of that philosophy. When our child has that 101-degree temperature at midnight, the village isn’t there to offer medicine and a cold bath. When our child goes out on that first date and doesn’t come home on time, the entire village doesn’t pace around the house or call every possible cell phone number available. It’s Mom and Dad who worry and pray alone at night. In a growing number of families, it’s Grandmom and Granddad.

Our second daughter was born February 29, 2004. We named her Nashetah, a Native American word that means second-born warrior.

She’s a fighter. Scheduled for delivery on June 2, she was born at twenty-six and a half weeks and weighed only one pound thirteen ounces. Nashetah fought through every day. She’s healthy now, and I’m grateful to God for her and for the medical staff at Lankenau Hospital near Philadelphia, who helped us through many very rough times.

As I watched my wife go through that process of constant care for our infant daughter, I gained deep respect for her and for the women around the world and their selfless giving and love. Prior to the baby’s birth, Shawnna herself was hospitalized for almost a month, and after she was born, our daughter stayed in the hospital for 84 days. Shawnna was there every one of those 84 days and spent most of her nights there. She had to teach me how to plan and cook meals for our older daughter and myself. Shawnna had her priorities in the correct order—our newborn daughter came first.

I understand the daily struggles of parenting so I know how tough it is to be a parent. I also know that we can never forget that we are the first teachers for our children. We can’t pass that responsibility on to anyone else. We cannot allow MTV, BET, or HBO to teach our young people. God designed that job description for us and we’re the only ones who can fill it.

If every one of us could look twenty years into the future and think of what we’d like our children to become, it would affect the way we teach our children now. We are marking them for life—and the more positive our influence and our teaching, the greater the opportunities and possibilities they’ll have later. Our choices today will affect future generations.

I traveled to South Bend, Indiana, in February 2005, to participate in a live television interview with the LeSea Broadcasting Christian television station. While there, I also visited several schools and talked with young people about my students and my work in Philadelphia. I gave away a few copies of my first book, I Choose to Stay, to students who had enough courage to stand and ask or answer questions. I always do that when I visit schools because I believe it is important that we reward students for taking risks. So many times they don’t take leadership roles because they feel uncomfortable speaking in front of their peers.

One particular young man stood up and I asked, “Do you have a question?”

“No, I don’t have a question.” He said he had heard me talk about my mother and how powerful her influence had been on me and how I wanted each of them to be dedicated to their parents. “I wanted to thank you for saying those positive comments about your mom.”

“Thank you,” I said. “My mom passed away a couple of years ago, but her influence still lives on.”

“My mom really made a lot of sacrifices for me also,” he said.

I told the young man his mom must be very proud of him and that she was doing a great job. I asked him to come to the front. I gave him a copy of my book. I noticed that there were tears in his eyes. When I looked at his teacher, she was crying also.

“Did I do or say something wrong?” I asked the teacher after we dismissed.

“That young man recently lost his mother. It touched him for you to mention his mom. He misses his mother a lot. I’m glad I brought him to this program today because it was important for him to be able to hear you say that about your own mother.”

I was able to talk to the boy and let him know that as an adult I still struggle over the loss of my mother, so I could imagine what he was going through. I told him to understand that his mother had planted seeds in him and her legacy and influence lives through him. His immediate response was, “When are you going to visit my church here in Indiana?”

“Maybe someday soon,” I said. “If they invite me, I’ll come.”

It was so encouraging for me to see a young person who understood the commitment that his parent had made. Although she’s not on the earth with him, I told him, “She’s here in spirit and she’s looking down and watching and she wants to see you go to college and get educated and give back to the community.”

That is the true immortality of influence.