Things I Wish I Had Taught My Kids, But Didn’t

Gambling Is Stupid

Fortunately, this one hasn’t been an issue for them. I taught them math and the importance of math, and they got those lessons. Shoot, they even like math, just like their old nerd-dad.

Let’s review the gambling premise: the odds are always in favor of the house, and even before that, the house takes a cut off the top. Nope, we are not going to do that.

What I couldn’t imagine is how the state would become the biggest bookie in all the land, only to be dwarfed later by online gambling. I don’t watch a lot of sports anymore, for numerous reasons. I find the product to be of diminished entertainment value, but when I do turn on a TV game, I am shocked by the number of ads for online gambling outlets.

Did you know a person can bet in real-time on the most trivial things? “I bet X dollars that the Purple Team will run to the right this play.”

And if you don’t like your bet on next week’s game, you can now trade it on some platforms like you were trading a commodity contract. None of this is good for America or Americans, but here we find ourselves.

I predict that we are going to have a whole generation of young men who destroy their lives through gambling. Bet on it.

Everybody Lies, Even When It Hurts Them

“Everybody Lies” is, of course, the catch phrase of the brilliant, mediocre Dr. House of TV fame. “Brilliant” because everybody who recommended the show said he was. “Mediocre” because upon watching, I discovered he would misdiagnose the main patient four or five times every week, ordering useless tests to prove the ill-conceived misdiagnosis, and then find the proper diagnosis just before the end credits rolled. “Hey, let’s throw everything against the wall and see what sticks!” Not a great plan for health care … or investing, come to think of it.

But most patients, if not all, did lie to the medical professionals, mostly out of embarrassment, I think. How self-defeating is it to lie to your doctor? And yet, so many people do. Most told lie? To the MD: “Yes, I have been exercising.” To the dental hygienist: “Yes, I’ve been flossing regularly.”

But I was not so jaundiced in my earlier days to believe that, in addition to medical patients, most politicians and journalists lie every day. I still don’t want to believe that, but the conclusion is hard to avoid. I blame a lot of it on Mike Wallace – he was so good at investigative journalism back in the day, 60 Minutes showed journalists they could become celebrities. And we are all much the poorer for it today.

Remember the NY Yankees manager, Billy Martin’s quote? “One’s a born liar; the other’s convicted.” He had a point.

Life’s Traps Are Easy to Walk Into

You will hate a large portion of your life and find it inescapable.

We lay traps for ourselves and walk right into them. I was shocked out of my mind when my friend told me some 25 years ago that he was out of town for the weekend due to his toddler son’s T-ball TRAVEL league.

And once that’s started, there is no end to it.

If you’re not careful, you will get on a treadmill of possessions and activities and “needs” that aren’t needs at all. Then you’ll likely have a boss you despise and need to stick around to pay the bills for stuff you are too tired to enjoy.

Life is not only for the talented, the smart, and the athletic, but even more for the persistent; those who can carry on another mile when all others have fallen by the wayside are the cats I want on my team.

Humility Is Essential for Happiness

To be happy, you will need to learn humility.

Oh, we learned the importance of humility for a healthy spirit, but not its fundamental importance for happiness.

Add to this the fact that you will learn the word hubris, and be surrounded by those who carry it by the boatload in every aspect of the daily grind, thus giving you yet another reason to need a mouth guard as you sleep, else you wake the neighbors with your grinding molars.

The Lessons We Didn’t Teach Our Kids

Well, you get the idea, and we, together, you and I, could list 500 things we didn’t teach our kids, but should have. And they do give me a not-to-exceed word count around here that I like to pretend to pay attention to every once in a while. So in the interests of brevity and not becoming morose to the point of wallowing in self-pity, we will terminate our list here.

We taught our kids to approach life with a positive outlook, and that bit of advice hasn’t lost its value. Others phrased it: Don’t let the illegitimate ones get you down.

So here is my advice to the downtrodden, young or old.

Live Joyfully and Celebrate America’s 250th

Have a party. America is 250 years old. It is still the land of freedom and opportunity. It remains the best chance for people to build a life where they can live, speak, and worship as they wish. I taught my kids to live joyfully, and that’s my message back to me, and you, today.

Happy 250th, America. God willing, we are just getting started.

Today’s Word: Ephemeral

Lots of the joys in life are such. Don’t miss out!

July 2026