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Marin County Real Estate

Community Connection
By Pat Ravasio

Golden Rule
Gone Awry

Highly sensitive readers may want to leave the room for this, but take the paper with you, because this is important.  It’s a case study in parenting, a lesson we all could use:  What do you do if you’ve come to realize that a kid who hangs out with your child is headed for trouble?

Most parents only get part of it right.  They pull their child away from the troublemakers. Then, they talk about it to everyone involved, except for the people who desperately need to hear about it, the parents of the troublemaker. It’s the golden rule gone awry.  Empathy and compassion makes many of us unable to say something that we would hate to hear ourselves.  But would it be worse than being the last to know?  Is that what you would want? 

A friend of mine whose son recently got into trouble says she was totally heartbroken to hear that a fellow mom and former friend of hers told everyone else how badly her son was behaving, and yet never said a word to her.  “I know it would have been hard for her to tell me, but why didn’t she just get the courage to come to my door or pick up the phone and tell me?  Instead I had to end up hearing the story through the grapevine, knowing that she told everyone else BUT me.

So rule number one of the new “Parent Survellience Network” is this:  If you see a child who is friends with your child doing something you would want to know about if he or she were yours, do your whole village a favor and pick up the phone and tell the parents about it.  Right away.  Let them be the first to know, not the last.  If they’re the ostrich-in-denial types, and get angry with you, so be it. You will have done your duty to them and to the greater community. Your Karma will be in fine form.  Your kids will know you care enough to do the right thing even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

Other lessons in leadership.

This year’s Oktoberfest was virtually perfect, with great weather, a good turnout and we didn’t run out of beer this year.  Redwood’s Girls’ Water Polo Team cooked up a great sausage lunch, and everyone had a good time.  But I can guarantee you that the people who enjoyed it most were those who put a little effort into it.  Every person who set up, broke down, loaded some chairs onto the truck at the end, those were the people who not only had fun, but walked away knowing they’d been part of making something nice happen for their town. 

Speaking of special people ….

For nearly 50 years, Oktoberfest co-chair Kitty Prosser has been quietly and kindly serving Corte Madera in so many ways that no one person can really know the extent of her impact. There are indeed others who do as much, but Kitty is really the heart of our town.  As fellow MVP Jana Haehl has pointed out, in all the years Kitty has been helping the Lions, the Beautification Committee, the Community Foundation, Parks and Recreation and so on, none of us has ever seen her lose her temper or say an unkind word about anyone.  Sometimes it’s hard to believe that there really are people that good.  So give Kitty a big hug when you see her, and thank her for a full lifetime of service to this old town. I think she got here some time in the ‘40’s?

Back to those darn kids.

Forgive me for not remembering the name of the excellent teen drug counselor who spoke at the Redwood High School PTSA last Thursday, but what he had to say was so important, I can’t wait for a name check.  The good news, he says, is that most of the substance enemies are known ones, nothing really new and scary, except for the frequency with which prescription drugs are stolen from bathrooms by teens, so please, hide away those meds for serious pain and ADD and the like.  The bad news, he says, is that too many parents are looking the other way from the most dangerous drug of all: alcohol.  Parents think a little beer or vodka isn’t going to hurt the kids, but it is the most dangerous and pervasive of all the drugs.  Those parents who provide alcohol to teens or otherwise condone its use are supporting the early demise of these kids.  So, maybe we should all lock away anything and everything alcoholic from the kids, and carefully consider what kind of example we are setting at home. I know there is some room for improvement at our house. 

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