Wat da Wat?

Do you know that when you eat meat you’re killing the environment?

What?!

This can’t be right. I have always been environmentally conscious. I changed all the light bulbs in my house to energy saving bulbs. I conserve energy by using cold water to wash our clothes. And, I drive a small car.

But, I do love a mouth-watering, tender, juicy steak.

How could this be? After all these years, after all my efforts, I still contribute greatly to the destruction of the environment. Is it possible that my sermons and speeches to my children and students about being environmentally responsible is all for naught?

How can eating a nice t-bone steak be environmentally hazardous?

Livestock consumption of water and grain is the culprit. Huge quantity of fresh-water and grain is needed in order to sustain the massive farms and factories that produce meat, who by the way supply our fast food restaurants and grocery stores.

So, it’s not really eating meat that is the root caused but our insatiable appetite for meat that is the problem.

This at least makes me feel better. I don’t have to give up meat to be environmentally conscious. I just have to cut down on my meat consumption. Of course, this is easier said than done. To make a bigger impact, not only do I have to reduce my meat eating habits but I also have to convince my own children and students that this is the right thing to do.

But before I work on my children, I need to work on myself. This means that no more spam, vienna sausage, corned beef, and bacon (I can’t believe I just wrote that). No more staple Filipino food like pork sinigang, adobo, and dinuguan. I must be going insane for even considering this. The term oxymoron just popped into my head or just plain moronic– Meatless Chris.

Is this even possible? I can’t even give up meat for God during the Lenten Season. How can I possibly make this sacrifice for the environment? Plus, knowing my children, since I’ve raised them properly, they are going to make this as hard as possible for me so that they won’t have to do it.

But, as I contemplate on this and feel the cold sweat running down my back, for now, I will make a pledge to eat meat only on weekends. Then, we’ll see what happens next.

God help me! 

It’s here again. It has begun and it’s turning ugly and fast. Cover your children’s eyes and ears because it will not be pretty.

What I am referring to is the political mudslinging. The 2008 primary season has been very subdued when  it comes to negative attacks. We were all riding the good wave of positive rhetoric and political civility. Unfortunately, now that the  race is nearing its climactic moment, we are seeing the candidates and their surrogates rolling up their sleeves and slinging mud at each other.

Here are two examples:

1. Barack Obama being called Barack Osama or his middle name being mentioned over and over again, Barack Hussien Obama, in order to raise anti-Islam sentiment without being too obvious. 

2. John McCain’s alleged involvement with a female lobbyist. While there is no accusation being thrown around, the suggestion of behavioral inappropriateness is obvious.

So it seems like nothing has changed. The candidate with less negative press will win. I thought this election was going to be different and that we will finally make our choice as confident voters and not as scared voters.

How can I keep telling my own children and my students to focus on positivity and civility if what they are going to see from this year’s election is a salvo of negativity?

Please American voters for the sake of my students and my children, do not let this happened. Show them that you are not stupid.

Your Fellow Citizen,

Chris

Are we raising our children properly? Will our children have the tools to grow up as productive adults? Have we given them the best advice so that they can make the right choices in life?

These are the questions that often keep parents up all night; questions that cannot be answer the following morning. Only time will tell how they will develop.

And since we cannot see or predict our children’s future, the best thing for us to do is to raise them responsibly and give them our best advice. Hopefully, our children will follow our life lessons and lead them to productive and happy lives.

Now, the hard part is being able to determine which life lesson or advice to give. The following is a list of 5 lessons that I have given to my own children. I usually try to work them in during our normal conversation or when the opportunity presents itself.

And since my children have selective memories, I tend to mention these things as much as possible. Of course, I modify my message according to my audience’s age level.  

So to my own children, here’s Daddy’s 5 Best Life Lessons:

1. Listen To Your Heart: If you follow your heart, in the long run you would have made the right choice. Listening to your heart can be applied to your career, your studies, and your romantic life. If you listen to your heart, you will do your very best to make things work out. If things don’t work out because you listened to your heart, at least be comforted on the fact that for a moment you were truly happy and content.

 2. Help People: When everything is said and done, all that matter is how you have affected people’s lives. Every opportunity you get to help other people, do it. Most importantly, when you help, do it freely with no strings attached.

3. Read, Read, and Read: Knowledge is power. The only way you can constantly gain knowledge is through reading. Reading also improves the way you look and analyze your world. Through reading, you will be able to minimize your mistakes when it comes to making the tough decisions in life.

4. Take Calculated Risks: In order for you to succeed you must fail, therefore, you have to learn how to take risks. The risks that you need to take however have to be calculated risks. This means that before you take the plunge, you must have all the information you need. It is true that billionaires like Gates and Trump take big risks, but the risks they take are all informed risks. This is the reason for their success.

5. Be An Entrepreneur: It would be great if we live in world where financial stability is not important. Since we live in a world where money and success are synonymous, you must be able to make enough money to attain financial stability. And in order to do this, you must be an entrepreneur or have an entrepreneurial spirit. Strive so that you won’t have to live pay-check to pay-check. If you are financially stable, then you can focus more on living rather than working. While having a lot of money doesn’t guarantee happiness, it can significantly reduce stress.

I hope that these 5 things will help guide my children and yours to success and happiness. Please remember that these 5 things will only be effective if accompanied by responsible parenting.

No amount of great advice will ever replace the constant presence and attention of parent for a child.

Since I have started blogging, I have been looking around the blogosphere for daddy blogs.  Unfortunately, I discovered that there are very few dads that blog about parenting or fatherhood and most parenting blogs are posted by moms.

My search was motivated by the fact that I wanted to find out what dads think about the characteristics of a great dad. While there were few dads blogging about parenting, some were actually very good, like zenhabits‘ list of what makes a great dad.

In reading these blogs, I was inspired to come up with my own list. However, I realized that my list would be biased since I am a dad and naturally I will list the characteristics that I have. So instead of making my own list, I asked the experts, my youngest children.

I chose CJ and Nikki because they are younger and they have an abashed honesty that all children have. I could have also asked my 3 teenagers for their input but I wanted to maintain a degree of seriousness, after all, being a dad is a serious business.

While I wanted to have at least 10 characteristics, CJ and Nikki insisted in keeping it short, simple, and sweet. They said that dads already have too much stuff to remember so 3 things will be perfect. With only three things to remember, I won’t have an excuse to forget to buy their toys.

After a grueling 30 minute interview and a pocket full of bribe candy, CJ and Nikki came up with the TOP 3 Things That Make A Great Dad!

1. Feed the Kids. Rightfully so, this is number one on CJ and Nikki’s list. Feeding the kids is obviously not limited to just making mac and cheese and popcorn for dinner. This category includes giving chips and candy at night when mama is not looking. Feeding the Kids also mean buying them a Happy Meal when they are sick. And most importantly, a dad must be able to feed the kid as the kid run around the house during dinner time.

2. Give the Kids A Home. Nikki wants me to emphasize that a home can also be an apartment since we use to live in an apartment. She also says that a dad must be able to put things in the house. And according to CJ, toys, computer, and lots of toys are the most important things in the house. However, Nikki is fine with having her own room even though her big sister keeps sleeping in her bedroom. “Oh yeah, a dad must also know how to fix the broken things around the house like fixing the toilet when it clogs because kids love to put things in the toilet like toothbrushes, toys, coins, cellphones, daddy’s wedding ring, and spoons and forks.”

3. Kiss and Hug Mama A Lot. I guess they too want their Mama happy. If I don’t kiss and hug mama, Nikki says that she might stop cooking breakfast for us and stop preparing our school lunches. CJ just wants Mama to be happy so that he can go into her home office and use her computer to go online. Need I say more?

There you have it, the Top 3 Things That Make A Great Dad, straight from the experts’ mouths. It’s short, simple, and sweet. This list is perfect for anyone’s memory threshold because if you really think about it, the majority of the people can only remember at the most, 3 things on any given list. For example, can you name all the 7 dwarfs, The 10 Commandments, and The Bill of Rights? If not, then this list is just for you.

As a parent of teenagers, I often think about the things that Mom asked me to do when I was a teenager but I didn’t because I was a teenager who was wise beyond my years, and who didn’t need an adult guidance especially from an adult who was raised in the Philippines. After all, I was an American teenager who needed freedom from the tyrannical rules of the old fashion tradition of the Philippines.

Every time I disobeyed her or ignored her, she would always say, “Time will come, time will come…” At that time, I have always wondered what she meant by it. I wish I could have that time back because now I understand what she meant. As a parent of 5 children (3 teenagers,  an eleven year old, and a 3 year old) that time that my mom has spoken about has come and it has come with a vengeance.

The following list is the top 7 things that she kept telling me to do but I didn’t and now I wish that I had.

1. Don’t park the car with an empty gas tank. After using it, I had the habit of parking my dad or my sister’s car with the gas tank almost empty, this way I didn’t have to worry about paying for gas. Now, my two oldest children, after using my car or their mother’s car, are experts in parking the car with just enough gas to make it to the nearest gas station before it goes empty.

2. Turn off the lights. Growing up, I thought leaving the lights open in the bathroom, in the kitchen, and in my bedroom was not a big deal. I thought my mom was just being too strict or too uptight. I realized that it is a big deal especialy when you are the one paying the electric bill. I have tried turning off the power in the house because my children can’t seem to get this one right. As usual I’ve lost the battle.

3. Stop opening the fridge every 10 minutes. “I’m looking for food.” This is the answer that I always gave my mom every time I opened the fridge to stare at the contents which I would do again 15 minutes later. The same words I used have magically made their way into my children’s mouths when we play out the same scene. Even my 3 year old would do the same exact thing and say “I want mac and cheese” even though he just had one 10 minutes ago.

4. Close the door behind you. I drove my mother crazy because I kept forgetting to close the door behind me every time I step outside for a quick errand. Now, thank God that we live in a quite and safe neighborhood because if we didn’t I am quite sure our house would’ve been broken into because my children always expect the invisible doorman to close the door for them.

5. Knock before you enter. I had a bad habit of walking into a room without knocking and it drove my mom and my sisters crazy. And since my children always learn from my examples, my wife and I always make sure that we lock our bedroom or our bathroom door when we are inside.

6. Wash your dishes. One time my mom hid all the clean dishes because my sisters and I were very good in using clean dishes but we didn’t know how to wash them afterwards. And of course since my children do not fall far from the apple tree, they too love to leave their dirty dishes on the sink, under their beds, and anywhere dishes can be hidden. At one point the situation got so bad that I removed all the dishes from the house and gave each child their own plate, spoon, fork, and glass. It worked out for the first week until my oldest started throwing his weight around and began using his siblings’ dishes.

7. Put it back where you got it from. I use to borrow my dad’s stuff and never put it back or gave it back. I would take out cereal from the cupboard and leave it on the kitchen table when I was done and so on and so forth. Now my children have taken up the mantle and are continuing the tradition of excellence in leaving a mess wherever they go.

Perhaps this list is trivial. The most horrifying thing that I face today is not the ghost of my past teenage rebellion but the words of my mother coming out of my mouth every time I reprimand my children for breaking the same rules that I consistently broke when I was their age.

There are more things that I left out from this list because my children and I have not gotten to the point yet. When my children and I reach that time and that moment I am sure my children will not disappoint and will surely make their grandmother proud.