Define uneducated? I define it as a lack of or minimal education. Sometimes it’s self inflicted such as my oldest stepdaughter, who dropped out of high school. Smart girl, was and still is lazy, has never held a job and is willing to settle for little if anything in all facets of her life.

My mother’s father had a 3rd grade education after his “good old boy” father moved the family out into the sticks. Illiterate but hard working and an exemplary father and husband.

A lack of education in itself doesn’t make or break a person in my opinion, but their character does. When it comes to being a husband and father, I strive to be like my illiterate grandfather.

The stepdaughter? Going on 50 years old, held a job for 1/2 day, 6 kids by 4 lousy husbands, sold the first one to its grandparents for $5,000 (literally), gave the 2nd one to her uncle, a lousy uncaring mother (if you can call her that), a pill addict, drank alcohol when pregnant and produced a daughter with fetal alcohol syndrome, lies, steals and while intelligent, has never had any desire to improve herself. One time Family Services was going to pay for child care, give her a monthly stipend and keep her on welfare if she agreed to go back to school for her GED. No, that was going to be too hard, so she didn’t and lost her monthly welfare checks. Her children were taken away from her repeatedly. Currently her older daughter and husband have custody of her youngest daughter. It’s really hard to respect a person like that.

Abo, I hope that at sometime you finally came to realize that you weren’t the problem, she was. I have two stepdaughters, three biological kids and one more young woman that has “adopted” me as her dad after suffering with an alcoholic mother and alcoholic, molesting stepfather.

I’ve always said that all kids need is to have someone accept them for who they are and to love them unconditionally. I’ve never made any distinction between any of the kids, although it didn’t work with the step daughter I mentioned. (I also never say step or half except in this case. Neither do the kids). Unfortunately for her, even as a young adult she kept hoping her absent uncaring biological dad would ride in and save the day, which of course he never did.

I’m no perfect parent, not by a long shot. There were plenty of times when I realized that I was wrong and apologized to them, even as small kids. I figured if anything, seeing me make mistakes and apologizing would show them that it would be ok if they made mistakes. What’s interesting is that the kids never remember those boo boos that unfortunately I remember all too well. I figure the best parent is one that realizes they are fallible and are going to make mistakes.

Sometimes parents are people you want to emulate while other times they are examples of what not to be. Hopefully you discovered that yourself.