Summary

That was the evening ritual as announced each night by “Auntoy”, my stepmother’s mother. Auntoy (her real name was Florence Pauly Carroll--but I don’t think I knew that until years later) was the savior of my youth.

Today’s podcast is about the vital, no-substitute-for it, home life, family life. I have used the term dinner table in the past as an anchor phrase for how wisdom and learning about everything from handling finances to faith to work ethic to understanding history to values to respect for authority to patriotism to how to think (not what to think) is shared and discussed at the family level.

As a way of getting us into this discussion, I am going to take a moment out of our 10 minutes together to tell you a bit more about me. Then we’ll get into why family interracton, the dinner table, is the beginning of everything.

Continuing

My parents split when I was 1. My Dad got custody; I did not see my Mother for several years afterwards. For about 2 ½ years, I was raised by the staff in one or the other of my paternal grandparents' homes. I met my step-mother, Paula, when I was 3 ½; she, my Dad, Auntoy and I became a family. Dad was distant, Paula was unpleasant, and Auntoy was my rock, my support. I remember times with her at the dinner table--having nothing to do with dinner--that I still treasure. Halfway through my Junior year in high school, I moved to Colorado to live with my Mom and her husband--mainly to see if it was any better there. This is not the “dinner table’ upbringing I am recommending and encouraging. But it is the one I want for your children and grandchildren. Yes, grandparents get to participate, too. Let’s talk more about the dinner table.

In schools, doesn’t it all start with parental involvement? Time after time we hear that the parents of low performing students are the ones who do not show up for the parent -teacher meetings. In homes where the importance of getting a good education is modeled and stressed, that’s the direction the kids go in. Conversely, in homes where being taken care of by others is modeled and stressed, that’s the direction the offspring most often take.

The dinner table works. For example, successful political, acting and sports families, often produce equally--or more--successful children. Archie Manning had a good college and NFL career as a quarterback. You may not have heard of him, but you have likely heard of two of his sons, Peyton Manning and Archie Manning. Kirk Douglas was a movie star, as are his sons and grandsons. Anglina Jolie’s father is Jon Vought, and Drew Barrymore is a member of the Barrymore family of actors, and the granddaughter of acting immortal John Barrymore. And we all know about political families like the Kennedys and the Bushes.

Closer to home, one of my friends and former business colleagues is a highly skilled personal investor, using skills and disciplines that he learned at, you guessed it, the dinner table. He has built an enviable financial life by putting those dinner table skills to use.

Today’s Key Point: What your children--what other children--learn at home through modeling and discussion will help shape their entire lives. For good or for ill. Your choice. And silence--no conversations--is also teaching and modeling. It goes on when they are listening and absorbing. It happens when they appear distant and distracted. And, yes, your kids are absorbing everything even when they are openly unreceptive and defiant.

Yes, it takes a village, but parents are the main hut in that village. The village is there to support the parents and grandparents in their good work--not to substitute for parenting. Teachers, law enforcement and community services are all part of the village’s support system for the parents. If parents abdicate--don’t step up to--their responsibility,