I am proud of my husband...

I know it is difficult being a parent, but I have experienced how difficult it is to only be able to parent children part of the time. See, some people say that when there is a divorce that there are part-time parents. This morning, as I write this, I began thinking that no parent ever ceases to be a parent. Once you are, you are. It is the opportunities for parenting that become limited by parenting plans and schedules. So, parenting is done by nightly phone calls, weekly visits, every other weekend and holidays.

I am proud of my husband for his growth and maturity as a father. Last night, he was having a conversation with our eleven year old about his schooling. He mentioned that a requirement of his Bachelor's of Science in Nursing Program was a clinical lab requirement for one day a week for the next several weeks and that his options were to work with the homeless, HIV and AIDS patients or low income families. I was evesdropping on his conversation when I heard him respond to her that his first option would be to work with the homeless. By his response, I understood that she was offened by this idea and said something like "ewwww, you don't want to work with the homeless. They will steal your stuff." He calmly said to her, "okay, let's explore that. Why would the homeless steal my stuff? What would they steal from me? By saying that, what are you doing?" He used the opportunity that presented itself during their conversation to teach her a lesson about generalizations and stereotyping. He said "girls can't play sports." She understood that her comments were not necessarily true about an entire group of people and that she had been unfair when she made assumptions about the people for whom Derek would be providing care. He went on to explain that most of the people that would be coming into the clinic couldn't care less about material possessions, because they are looking for medical attention, a drink of cold water, clean clothes and a place to wash their hands and face.

They talked about how people who are homeless are not even having their basic needs met. I was so proud that they had a really heart-felt discussion about people in need. Derek told Micaela that the reason he went into nursing was because of his desire to help people. He said that of course he wants to be able to earn money to support our family, but the reason he is working so hard in school is so that he can eventually help more people and possibly open a clinic like the one at which he will be volunteering. By the end of their conversation, I was beaming with pride.