Tomorrow's A National Holiday Celebrating George and My Father's Birthdays.

Tomorrow's a holiday; it's George Washington's birthday and it was also my father's.

I wish that I could have told my dad the exact kind of attention I wanted from him. Who knew? He was a well known and gifted surgeon. But he didn't want to know very much about the business of medicine. He performed miracles, saved patients from losing their sight and gave lots of his time to a free clinic, where he was really the happiest.

He also didn't want to know anything about taking care of minor house hold chores: fixing plugs or any other electrical gadgets around our home. And he didn't think that I needed to know anything he didn't know about or care about. While he did not live long enough to participate in the coming technological revolution, I know he would have participated in it, as he was an inventor of sorts.

He did care about the stock market and would discuss part of his investing with me. He decided one day to invite a stock person from New York to come to our home in Detroit. I asked my dad if this man was rich. He told me that he really didn't know and I ought to ask him when he came to dinner. I was eight. So I did and Anthony G. said, "No." That was the end of the man from New York and a real acknowledgment for me. I felt intuitively smart. That was a real gift from my father to me.

I am sure, however,that my father never thought that his daughter would want to start a business or become a social entrepreneur, which is now a huge challenge for me, one that I am struggling with daily.

I so would have liked him to give me opportunities to earn money for myself. I needed to feel that I was valuable, that my time was valuable and I could support myself, financially. I know that I am not alone in feeling that my earning muscle is far from developed.

I am voicing this now, so other fathers and daughters can realize that the kind of attention we get in our childhoods lives with us forever.

Dr. Temple Grandin's Story Is All About Attention

I recently saw the movie about the autistic Dr. Temple Grandin. I had known about her and her amazing work with cows and how they were led to be dipped and ultimately to be slaughtered. Because Temple is so gifted visually and can work out everything in her mind, the creative team gave the audience many examples of how she could actually see things we could not. Claire Danes was terrific as Temple.

Fortunately for Temple, her mother never gave up mainstreaming her, special teachers became her mentors and defenders, her roommate in college was a blind woman who gave Temple the kind of companionship and acceptance she needed. These positive attention-givers counter-acted the continuing negative attention she got from her peers, from the men who were established in the animal husbandry industry and from the rules which excluded her and her mental gifts.

There's been such an increasing number of autistic children born lately, Temple has become a spokesperson for the public's need to realize that autistic kids can grow up to use their special kinds of thinking to make real differences and contributions in many industries.

Special kinds of attention must be paid to bring these kids safely through their childhoods and into their adult lives.

Today is the annual day for loving!?!

Today is February 14th, Valentine's Day. It occurs every year! And it seems to become more commercialized every year. The cards and red hearts are everywhere - in the candy shops, the party shops, drug stores, grocery stores, pet shops, jewelry stores, department stores --- begging for our attention and requests to buy them.

Have you seen this year's red satin pillows with words of love embroidered on them?

My thoughts for the day:
Why does a day for love have to be only one day a year?

It doesn't really matter whether we think of self-love, being selfish, or giving ourselves the kind of attention we need...we have to be good to ourselves before we can be good to others.

Being selfish has gotten a bad rap, for it really is all about our learning to take care of ourselves. If we don't take care of ourselves and expect others to do it for us, we often are disappointed, get angry and withdraw from the other. This kind of behavior certainly doesn't work for anyone.

When we tell people that we love them and, yet, treat them unkindly, or thoughtlessly, or disrespectfully, we really are not loving them at all. I have heard so many stories about this; I think we all have to give it some thought. Count the different ways you love people --- by returning phone calls appropriately, by being conscious of listening and not interrupting when you're in a conversation, by putting your cell phone away when you're sharing time with someone, by acknowledging support or gifts we receive we receive from others.


Decide how you want to be loved so you can tell others; then make sure you discover how others around you want to be loved. It's not the same for everyone.

Try making your own card this year announcing to those special people in your life that you are going to love them all year the way they need/want to be loved. If they haven't told you, ask them!

Be your lovig self today and everyday.

Our Kids Deserve Valentines Every Day!!!

There are too many headlines in today's papers about the escalating amount of stress which our kids are exhibiting. I see articles about the percentage of college kids who are on meds for stress relief. I see news that New York State high school graduates don't have the skills they need to survive at college. That's the bad news. And there is some good news. There a program surfacing in elementary school that's been created to teach young kids how to handle the stress that they're facing in their early lives today, as their parents loose their jobs and the family starts wondering if they have to move.

First comes awareness, then comes action which leads to solutions. The earlier the programs start, the more experience kids get in handling their stress, the stronger and healthier they can can become with taking meds. Older, experienced kids can mentor younger kids. What a concept.

Why did I title this, " Our kids deserve Valentines every day." Well, our most commercial holiday ever will be here in just three days. All kids know what valentines are and they want lots. The more they get, the more popular they feel. And sometimes they even get to eat them, the chocolate and candy hearts.

Valentines are also supposed to show that someone cares about them. That's what all the advertising says. So, perhaps if we let our kids know everyday somehow that we do care about them by giving them the kind of attention they need, we can prevent the amount of stress in their lives.

We can be more available to them. We can turn off our televisions, our blackberries and our computers. We can read with them, play with them, walk with them, build castles with them, we can cook together - anything that involves our spending time together and doing something creative together. We can listen to them. We can really watch them play.
By choosing to be consciously attentive, we can extend Valentine's Day from a one day event to an everyday event and watch our kids thrive as they get that we really do care about them!