Education and Parents

The thread of Dogfish Jones dad passing got me to thinking about something I have been thinking about a lot since my dad is 86 with dementia and the end might not be far off. Being 60 I guess you tend to think more about late life, the end of life and where you have been.

I have worked 41 years in my job. I only have a high school diploma. I did about 80 hours or so at Sam Houston State. I think I am pretty good at what I do and others seem to think the same. I have 125 people working under me. A number more educated then me. Several,with degrees. They usually assume I must have a degree. Usually I use my dads old saying “I went to the school of hard knocks. One of the younger ones ask me the other day “where did you learn what you know, where did you get your education”. My answer was “learned more from my dad who is now 86 and dropped out in the 8th grade and truth be told probably missed a lot of school working on the farm than I ever did going to school.” Things my parents taught me I use daily. I can’t remember when I last used something like trigonometric or calculus. My dad taught me so much growing up from how to be a good person, work hard, don’t make excuses, how to work on just about anything and everything. Hopefully I absorbed a good amount of that. That’s for others to judge. I was so lucky yet early in life I never realized it. I thought everyone’s parents did these things.

My dad grew up poor. His dad by all accounts was a pretty horrible person. His mom was a great person. However, she died drowning while working getting cows across a flooded stream. They pretty much dairy farmed until my dad left around 18. Times were tough and they were poor. Yet my dad was able to come out of that a better man. Hearing the stories of his life in the past several years it’s pretty amazing what he went through yet never really said much about.

Growing up we were poor at times too. The thing is we never knew it as kids. That’s because my parents did things with us. Not having money was hard on them. It wasn’t hard on us as kids. It didn’t take much to keep us entertained. Outside and a 20” bike and you could do a bunch. They sacrificed. They were always our friends but they were our parents. I could tell many stories about what they did to try to make us able to be successful in whatever we chose.

Problem today is people think they can replace all this by sending their children to good schools and on to college.

The thing is….you can’t. Education is great. Having great parents is a unbelievable blessing.

I have been able to do more in life than I ever imagined. Traveled around the world. Great job. Make more money than I ever thought I would. Life is good.

Thanks mom and dad. If you have kids. Focus on being the mom and dad they need you to be. It’s likely to pay dividends they might not get in college.

Great post.
Mom and Dad are gone now, but they raised a great family I’m proud to be a part of

Life is non easy

Great post Fishspanker!

I grew up much the same way. I was born in 1945, before the end of WWII, and my dad was still in the Army Air Corp. I grew up in the South Oak Cliff area of Dallas, in a home that may have been 1,000 sq. ft. I didn't know we were poor, because my parents sacrificed stuff for themselves to see that me and my younger brother had "the basics" for a kid.

I went to UT in 1963 and was the 1st in either my dad or mom's families to get to college. I got three years in there and quit for a year to work full time and save enough to pay for my senior year. Problem, in 1966 I got drafted and sent to Vietnam. When I got out of the Army, I did not want to go back to a college setting right away, so I got my old job back, got a few nice promotions and never did get that degree. I too had folks with degrees working for me for the remainder of my working career. Back then experience was worth as much as a college degree, and you were promoted for being the best choice, not the most educated, for that position.

I too, can say, "Thanks mom and dad" for teaching me what really mattered.

schools are required to do more because parents do less..tons of kids with no support at home

Great post!

Great post and so true. My wife and kids, brother & sis in law all work in education. The last 20 years have seen a shift but none larger than the last 5 years. The separation of kids who have involved parents (1 or both) who take time to teach them things about life is staggering.

Great post... Dan

I’m not buying it. Schools do more because they want more control. School feeding is the biggest example. Schools shouldn’t send food home, refer those kids to social services, refer parents to the police. Deadbeat parents spend what little discretionary income they have on themselves and their vices instead of their kids.

Great post, excellent points!

great post.......I was blessed with great parents also....

I was so fortunate to have the best parents ever. Perfect, no, but did the absolute best for my sisters and I.

I did as well. I look back at mistakes they made but realize they did the best they knew how at the time.

Learning to work hard and be relentless are some key attributes people are missing more and more now days it seems

less accountability also..kids get away with more than when we went to school (cursing at teachers/principals, fighting, threatening school teachers/admin..there are basically no consequences now and the kids know it

if a kid does no work, give them a 50 instead of a zero

Apparently, they are on their phones during class.
This is unacceptable, and would have been met with fierce swift swats from the yard stick with the metal edge in my day.

Same here. Mom taught us how to do house work which has come in handy over the years. Dad was a welder and later a machinist. He learned to be a machinist by asking for more job duties when the company he worked for was low on welding work. Could read a micrometer by the time I was 9 years old and how to sharpen a drill bit to almost as good as new.
Mom and Dad finished high school but had no other formal training. I wanted to follow my dad as a machinist so I went to trade school in Northwest Louisiana and was lucky enough to get hired at Eastman Kodak. The put me thru their Maintenance Apprenticeship Program to become a US Department of Labor Certified Mechanic. My dad told me to go to any and every school or training they offered. I did as he said and ended up as a Senior Mechanical Inspector/Pressure Vessel Inspector with 33-1/2 years of service before retiring. Took that knowledge and started a second career with another chemical company and worked for them till I completely retired.
No college debt, had a job waiting for me when I finished Trade School. All three of our children (along with my wife) have college degrees and were school debt free within 2 years of graduating.
They are all working in the field they went to college for and we are so proud of them. Hopefully they pass this on to the 4th generation of our family.

I have 4 grandkids. 3 know how to work. The other one, 20 year old guy, so far has shown no sign of finishing any task. The wife says to give him time, but I don’t think slackers improve with time. Hope I’m wrong.

His parents, as much as I care for them, are the fault. His Mom is a helicopter parent that solves all her son’s problems.

All my siblings and my wife’s siblings worked hard to make a good life. We had great parents.

OP --- great post . ---today has had several great post's .
I was told as a young father ---- " don't be your child's friend , your only job is to parent them and make them responsible " . To many parents want to be friends with their kids ---huge mistake . Teach them the value of hard work , how to be responsible and ownership to what they do .

Awesome Post. Thanks for sharing.

Us olds are the last spawn of the greatest generation.

Times are changing at the speed of sound.

This is a great post; thank you for sharing. I agree that it's so important to be a good parent and not only give everything for your kids but simply be there for them. Parents certainly play an essential role in their kids' lives, but I can't say that education doesn't matter at all. Yes, if you want to work with your hands in crafts, repairing spheres, then yes, there is no need to go to college; a parent can teach you. But what about medicine, the legal sphere? You can't be a good specialist without proper education.
My father is a woodworker, and he has been making mostly furniture from wood for more than 30 years. My older brother decided to continue kind of like a family business and never went to college. I respect that and everything he needed to know my father taught him.
But I'm a student because, yes, I have a chance to work with my father and brother, but I decided to take another path. And for me, education is important because it's not only about a diploma, but other skills. It's hard, though; sometimes I have too many not-that-important things to do, but it's worth it. When I need help with writing, which I don't like, I use the help of https://edubirdie.com/law-essay-writing-service because I've written a lot of papers; I know how to do it, and help saves me time which I can dedicate to learning something more important.
I also know a lot of cases when people with diplomas work for someone who doesn't have it, but it's life; something like this happens.
I don't want to underestimate the importance of education, or those who doesn't have it, and I respect each person's choice.

Unless you want to start your own business, it's tough to get a decent job without a degree these days. Even tougher to find one that's not at risk of being obsoleted in the next 10-ish years.

As for parenting, parents are too focused on their phones these days. Very few actively parent and spend time with their kids. And when the schools try to replace some of that lack of parenting, the parents get offended and tell them not to get mad at their perfect little angel. If admins had any guts, this would go away. But they don't and the entire culture and future of our country suffers as a result.

While I'm not discouraging the youths to go to college and get a degree, your statement of its tough to get a decent job without a degree it's idiotic, plenty of good jobs out there, learn a trade

No it's not.


Fir instance just in the DFW area there are lots of fire and police jobs going unfilled that start out at $70,000 plus.Many will send you to school and pay you while in school. Guaranteed pension when you retire. Decent benefits etc. Some start in excess of $75,000 and being in the $90,000-100,000 range in a few years is easy.
These jobs ho unfilled. No layoffs, no downsizing etc.

Tons of unfilled Firefighter jobs? Really? I can understand Police positions going unfilled, regradless of the salary, but I was always under the impression that Firefighter openings usually had way more applicants than positions available.

This is not true- the skilled trades present many opportunities to make more money than you could imagine and you go to work day 1 versus 4 years down the road. Companies that require degrees on job postings will take people with relevant real world experience in lieu of a degree and pay you big money.

And you don’t have 100k in college debt- that’s a win win.