One of the lessons that my parents, as positive parents, taught us was that the family must come first.  I can remember when my sister and brother and I were very young, they didn’t let anything come in between our family.  They always stressed that if one ate, we all ate. When we went shopping for shoes or coats or whatever we never felt that one was going to be treated better than the other. 

I can remember clearly the whole family getting on the bus to travel to downtown Brooklyn (NYC). We would get off on Fulton Street and head to A & S. Before we went into the store, my mom would gather the three of us together and say “We only have a certain amount of money to spend so don’t any one of you act up.” We didn’t get to voice our opinion on what style we wanted. In those days there weren’t a lot of styles available. We didn’t have to worry about the latest sneakers or the $100 jeans. Things back then, and I’m only talking about 50 years ago, were very simple. The sneakers of the day were Converses and I don’t remember what jeans were out.

As the oldest and the most rebellious, I was usually the one who got into trouble. We would do our shopping in the basement of A & S and after we were finished we would go to this stand up restaurant. I wish I could remember the name of that place.  We would end our day of shopping by eating grilled hot dogs.

Those were great times. Those were great bonding experiences and it showed the importance of being loyal to one other. We would be together as a family. Today we are not as physically close as were then. My sister and my brother live outside of NYC.

It doesn’t stop the loyalty we feel for one another. We look after one another as our parents did. Even though we see some things differently, we don’t let those differences interfere with our being a family.  We’ve learned that we can work through them by talking about them and coming to an agreement that we can live with.  I could not imagine a situation that would put a wedge in our relationships. It’s painful to hear of families who haven’t interacted with one another for years. It’s even more painful when we learn that the situation that separated them was something silly.

As positive parents the three of us do our best to instill the importance of loyalty into our kids. We do that by doing the same things our parents did. We pick a nice day. We get together. Then we go shopping.

I LOVE BEING A DAD!!