Things mothers should never say to their kids
"Why can't you be more like your brothers",
"You'll never amount to anything",
"GET OUT of the house!
It's my weekend off".
How hard
can it be
to say
"I Love You"?
Why is it so important?
I'm almost 40 years old and I've never known true love in my life. So who is better off, the child who gets beaten and then hugged by the parent who says "I'm Sorry, I don't know what came over me, I love you" or the child who is told to get out of the house because you want it quiet on your weekend off and never hears you say "I love you"? I know what everyone will say, but you are wrong. I have struggled against suicide my entire adult life because I have a deep seeded feeling that no one loves me. If you've been fortunate enough to have been loved, then you can not understand that kind of torture.
Try congratulating your kids
when they do something good.
Self esteem
is everything!
It's absolutely everything!
Let me say
that again,
self esteem
is everything.
Listen,
or I might
say it again.
If you don't take the time to build self esteem
in your kids,
they may never have it.
It takes years
to develop it
on your own,
and winds up being more arrogance than esteem.
Believe me,
I know it
to be true.
Self esteem
is everything!
John Lennon
"You can't cheat kids.
If you cheat them when they're children they'll make you pay when they're sixteen or seventeen by revolting against you or hating you or all those so-called teenage problems.
I think that's finally when they're old enough to stand up to you and say,
'What a hypocrite you've been all this time.
You've never given me what I really wanted,
which is you."
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zpoetryman@yahoo.com
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The Family Way
Brother you've done it once again
Doctor Brother now thinks I'm insane
Analyzed me without hearing my pain
Brother should I forgive you?
Brother! Brother can you forgive me?
I've done only what I wanted to do
I couldn't live up to you, so I was me
Do you know, brother, that I love you?
Brother will you forgive me?
Father, Father can you forgive me?
Do you know why I've leaned on you?
I needed child support but not money
Do you know, father, that I love you?
Father will you forgive me?
Mother! Mother can you forgive me?
Do you know how I tried to love you?
Mother, why was it so hard to tell me?
Do you know, mother, that I love you?
Mother will you forgive me?
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Self Esteem Is Everything!
Well I haven't written the poem yet, but after writing that about self esteem, I decided it sounded like a good title for a poem, and perhaps a good way too offset all the negativity and pain from "Quarter Life Crisis" and "The Family Way". I realize that I write a lot of negative sounding poems, but when I feel down or angry are the times I feel the need to write the most. It helps to release some of the tension.
In this country, and in my own family, there is considerable turmoil within families. The breakdown of the American family is one of the biggest reasons for our high crime rate. Working with teenagers in both a high school and a reform school for boys, I can see how it affects them and often is directly responsible for the misbehavior of these kids. I won't get in to the details of American family life, because there are too many variations of the same story. But something I have said many times is that SELF-ESTEEM IS EVERYTHING. I believe it is the key to accomplishment. So many kids, including me when I was one, were not taught self-esteem, or the importance of it in life. Having the confidence to TRY is the first step to succeeding at anything and everything. That does not mean that everyone will succeed at everything, it simply means that they will make a confident effort. When you do that, you have a greater chance of succeeding than if you try without confidence, and a 100% greater chance than if no attempt at all is made. Fear of failure holds so many people back. It held me back for over 13 years as an adult. There are so many things I was afraid to do that I did almost nothing with my life until the past few years. It wasn't until I decided that blaming my Mother for my failures was no excuse, that I began to realize the only thing that was ever really holding me back was my own lack of self-esteem. My confidence was at absolute zero. Sometimes now, I feel overconfident. I think perhaps I step into things a little too quickly, like I'm trying to make up for lost time. If parents would take more time congradulating their kids for their successes and not making them feel like worthless human tissue when they make mistakes or fail to accomplish their goals, children would have a different outlook on life. They might not feel like there is no way to earn a living with all the competition for jobs out there when it's time to go out on their own. So often they turn to crime as a source for income and to gangs as a source for family support. It all starts at home and the world will be a better place when families are better families, no matter what religion they are, or if they have no Faith at all. Self-esteem is everything. JJ
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Quarter Life Crisis
Let me give you a little background on this poem. I had just had the worst day of my life. It was my 20th birthday and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Then the things that couldn't go wrong went wrong. I'll fill in the details when I have more time, but let's just say I was away at college, my girlfriend didn't send me a card or call me, and I suspected she was cheating on me back home. On top of that I had no money, my roommates didn't feel like having a party, my grades in school were dropping like a man wearing cement shoes in the East River and I was thinking he might like some company. So I needed someone to blame, and it wasn't going to make me feel any better to blame myself. I felt like doing something to change my mood, so I shaved off my beard and mustache. I don't know why I thought that would make me feel better, and I was wrong because it didn't. Not only that, but when I went out to the store to buy some beer to drowned my sorrows in, I didn't look like the person on my photo ID and the guy wouldn't sell me the beer. So there I was, sober as can be and depressed as can be. Even at 20 years young in 1983, I knew that I was insecure. I didn't realize at the time that self-esteem was everythig, but I knew I didn't have it, and I thought I never would. Where is that pair of cement shoes when you need them?
Here's something to contemplate.... I wrote Quarter Life Crisis over 18 years ago on my 20th birthday. Now it has become a common enough issue that there are books being written about it, a heavy metal band using it as there name and numerous websites with discussions about it on them. Just type it in your favorite search engine and look at all the hits. Well, if I had the self-esteem I needed a long time ago, I'd be famous for coining the phrase. Instead I'm a Viking to Cristopher Columbus. I got there a long time before, but never did anything about it. So now someone else has published a book about something I should have done myself a very long time ago.
Self-Esteem is everything!
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The Family Way
The first verse of this poem was actually written several years after the rest. I asked my brother Tom to read my poetry and give his opinion. Being a psychologist, rather than tell me if he liked my poetry or thought it stunk, he decided to analyze me. That was the last thing I needed. I analyze myself all the time and write some of my poetry as therapy. Besides, he's family, and too close to the situation to give an unbiased analysis. So I added a stanza as a rebuttle of sorts to his analysis. It is perhaps a bit harsh, but it is how I feel. Over the years I have become closer to my family, but I still can't say the words. There have been a few occasions of great sorrow for our family and situations where I felt like saying "I Love You" to my parents and brothers, but the words just wouldn't come out. It's like the words would burn my tongue if I said them to a family memeber. When my Father had a heart attack and needed surgeory, I wanted to say to him, before the operation, that I loved him. After all, I wasn't sure if he would make it through alive and I wanted to tell him how I felt. I never had before. I couldn't bring myself to say the words. Then, several years later he had another heart attack, and again I was faced with telling him I loved him, but once more, the words would not come out. He managed to survive that operation too. It's been several more years and now I am worried about how many more he has left in him. He will be 70 this year and none of us thought he would live this long after 2 heart attacks. Maybe he's waiting for me to be able to say the magic words. But there shouldn't be any magic needed to say them. So why can't I say it still? And why when my oldest brother's wife died couldn't I give him the hug I wanted to and tell him I loved him? That's what not telling your children that you love them, and not hugging them when they need one, or even when they just want one, does to them. So when I tell you to say it to your kids, it's because I don't want them to grow up like me, afraid of such wonderful words that have so much power and carry a message that everyone needs to hear. I'd like to believe that all you need is love, but you need self esteem too.
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My friends' home pages, favorite URLs, other pages on my web site.
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Other websites I like.
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Save A Starving Poet - Donate to a Poet in need
Self-Portrait, Blind To The Me Others See, Two Faced & Constantly Changing - Poems of the inner side of me
Back To The Egg - Poems of Suicide contemplation
A Question Of Faith, The Great Unknown & Have You Heard The Word? - Poems on God, Me & Faith
Segregation, Separation & Walls And Bridges - Poems on Prejudice & Pride. Prejudice springs from the seed named Pride!
If Closets Could Talk & On Our Way Home - Poems of friends and friendships lost
Where Are You Going, I've Seen Where You've Been!, Room For Rent-Room For Free & I Wish I Wasn't Me - Rage & Blame
Unrequited Love, The Emptyness Within, You Miss Me, Do You?, I Want To Lie, Perfection Is Within & excerpts from love letters - Unrequited Love Is The Story Of My Life
Unrequited Love part 2 - Unrequited Love Is The Story Of My Life
Eye Of The Pirate, Heart Of A Thief, Daybreak & Last Love - A Pirate's Treasure
At Long Last Love?: Coming Soon - Under Construction
Let's Get Naughty, Let's Do It All Night Long, Off The Wall - A few naughty songs for Lisa
Expose Yourself (Mind Fux), Bar Fly & Just Say Yes - Poetry about strippers.
Chapter 3 : Swing Set, Fantasy Lovers - Back To The Main Adult Poetry Page
Save A Starving Poet - Donate to a Poet in need
Quarter Life Crisis Yahoo Group - I created a Yahoo group for the Quarter Life Crisis issue which has become a recognized problem for teens and 20's people.
My poetry site - I hope Talk City does not do what other web hosts have done and sell their homepages to some company that charges for personal sites. My soul will not rest if my poetry is taken for profit or hidden from anyone who might want to read it. I wrote it for free and I want it to be there for free forever.
JFJ
8/22/2001
http://home.talkcity.com/EaselSt/wz0zzz/FamilyUnTies.html
OK, it's even worse, a year after I wrote that, Talk City is gone. They sold their websites and the new owners went bankrupt. It's a long story, but it goes right along with the rest of my life. Let's hope GeoCities survives long after I'm gone. http://www.oocities.org/zpoetryman/QuarterLifeCrisis.htm
8/18/2002
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