What Kind of Citizens Are You Raising?

¡Hola, everybody! It's Richard R Ramos, and welcome to the Parent Whisperer podcast. Hope everybody's doing well. I'm doing well here in Santa Barbara, and what I want to do today is follow up on the last podcast because I was sharing with you, or I was encouraging you to, to purchase a copy of my book. When you write a book, you're trying to put everything that you teach when you're speaking, and then you're writing it all down. That's a whole different chore, the whole different effort, because speaking is one thing, but when you're writing it down, you have more time to think through what you want to say, how you want to say it. And it's a resource. Now I realize not everybody likes to read. I understand that. So, you know, this book, I try to write it in a very easily, easy to read style. It's not, there's not a lot of big words in here or anything like that. It's 182 pages. It's not that long of a book for those of you who do read books. And as I said, it's just real plain, simple language to give you principles, to give you ideas, stories, all for the purpose of the instruction and guidance that as parents that we oftentimes need. Now, I will say what other people have told me. Okay, so not me saying it, although I'm going to say it now, that they always say when you, you become a parent, you don't— nobody gives you a manual. A lot of people have told me that's not true anymore. Here is a manual on parenting. Parents on a Mission: How Parents Can Win the Competition for the Heart, Mind, and Loyalty of their children. So I want to read to you the part on building community, building safe communities. That's chapter 5. And in that chapter, I start with a story called the lima bean story. And it's a story about community where a grand— the grandparents of two small children, they're a little bummed out because they're realizing as they are observing their grandchildren, that they're losing the spirit of the community, of what community means and what community meant to them as they were growing up in their particular community. And so they wanted to give their two grandchildren, a boy and a girl, a lesson of what community is really all about. And what they did was they brought— it's called the Lima Bean Story— and they, the grandmother has a bag of lima beans and she uses all the beans to lay them out on the grass where they're sitting down and to describe what each bean, who it represents, individuals in the community. And so they go around and the grandfather and the grandmother explain who each one represents. This person over here, this family over here, this guy over here. And some of them are really nice people and some of them have not done such great things, but they're all part of the community. So eventually they say, okay, now you from our community choose people that you want from our community to be in your community. The kids start to choose different beings that they— the grandparents said, this is who this one is, this is who this one is. And when they get done, they realize that they left out 3 of the beings, 3 of the people. So they say, who are these people that you left out of the— your circle, your village? And so they go to tell them. One of them was a guy who went to jail, Another one is a woman who's a little mentally challenged and somebody else, kind of like the people that are normally rejected in society. And, and the other one's a guy who's always drinking too much. So in other words, they, as they're children, so they're like, oh, and the grandparents say, why did you leave him out, her out, them out? And so they tell, oh, he's scary, or, oh, he went to jail, or, oh, she scares me. She's always singing to herself. Things like that. And so the grandparents say, okay, if you're going to do that, then this is what it's going to mean. And they start tying the people that they're rejecting to influence in a good way that they had on the community. Of course, the kids don't know that, so they start telling them the history of who that person is that they're rejecting. So at the end, the kids look at each other and they feel kind of sad, they feel kind of bad that they've rejected these people. In other words, they prejudge— they judged them, they prejudged them. And so after they hear the history of each one of them and the positive effect that they had on the community, even though they may not be always perfect— I get none of us are perfect, but they've made mistakes, but they've also done some good things. So then the boy and the girl agree and they say at the end, I guess we all belong, and they include them in the community. And so that's a great lesson on understanding that everybody belongs. And it's a great illustration also of how young people who don't always understand things can be taught from parents and/or grandparents. And that's the first thing I want to point out here. So after we read this story, when we're doing the lessons, if you go to a class and we have a discussion, so some of the points that we make that I want to share with you of this community-building story is that Extended family can be a powerful resource for teaching young people the value of all people in the community. Now, first of all, what I like about this is that it's the grandparents who are teaching the two kids, the little boy and the little girl, which, being a grandfather, that encourages me, that inspires me, that I want to be involved in my grandchildren's life. And I am involved in their lives, luckily, because we all, we live close. Now, I don't— there's— I have two great-grandchildren and a grandson, his children, that live in a different state, so I don't always get to be around them. But I've been around them enough, around my grandson, not his two babies, but him, enough to at least have some influence in his life. And then my other grandkids pretty much most of them are here or have been here. One of them has moved recently because of his work. But in general, if you're a grandparent, you know what I'm talking about. You love having the grandkids come over. You love being able to spoil them a little bit and treat them here and treat them there and take them here, take them there and spend time with them. And so, but in this particular case, not only are you doing those things, but you're teaching them, or they were teaching the kids a very important lesson about community and about how everybody in the community is important and belongs. And they wanted to give their grandchildren a sense of what it means to build a community. And I just love the fact that it's grandparents. So grandparents, if you're listening out there, you have an opportunity You have a role to play in the life of your grandchildren in a lot of different ways, and whatever opportunities come— this particular lesson is on teaching our grandchildren how to be a good community member and how to build community. The other thing that the grandparents taught them was that healthy communities don't prejudge their members. Just reading here a little bit: Children model their behavior on what they see and hear from their parents. Children are also innocent and not expected to always embrace other things and people they are not familiar with. Thus, as we saw in the story, the boy and the girl showed prejudice towards the individuals in their grandparents' community that they did not know personally and were simply judging them from a shallow and ignorant frame of reference. Of course, they're children, but the grandparents took the opportunity to show them how prejudging people before you really know the fullness of who they really are or the history is not a good practice. And so that's the other lesson that's taught, that we talk about in, in discussing this story, is that knowing family and community history helps connect children with their community. That's a very important lesson because a lot of kids are not connected to their community. And why? Because they have no history of the community. So therefore they have no appreciation for the community. Now, to be fair, I understand that nowadays it's not like before where most families live close together and a lot of people stayed in their house for years and you're in the same neighborhood for years. A lot of nowadays people have moved, families live far apart from each other, so that, that's true. But if that's not the case with you, then it's important that we teach our children— now this is both for parents and grandparents, not just grandparents— for parents, that we teach our kids the history, that they have an, an understanding of their community, what it's about. We get involved in the community activities and like here in Santa Barbara, one of the huge traditions here is called Fiesta Days. And it's, I think they're getting to 90, I think it's over 90 years now that every year they've been doing this. So that's one of the traditions. So it's just things like that. This is also a Chumash Indian territory long ago. That's all who who lived here. Now they're living on a reservation, but doing pretty well. I gotta say with the, with all the gaming, let's put it that way, that they have now there at the reservation. But let me read here. Do our children know the true history of their family, community, and country? If so, or if not, Why is this important? It is important because of the need to belong, the need to take pride in something bigger than self, the need to choose loyalty to and pledge our allegiance to family, community, and country. Again, that, that is a big principle lesson. I used to do a lot of gang prevention. A matter of fact, the first two, let's see, First two books I wrote were on gang prevention because I used to be very involved in that. And one of the questions that we would always— that I would always answer is, because police and communities and teachers and principals and people just didn't know, why do kids join gangs? What is that about? Why do they join gangs? And what is the best— what is a gang? Why do kids join gangs? And what is the best method per preventing. I would go to all these gang conferences and they would— we had federal law enforcement, state law enforcement, and local law enforcement, and they never had good answers and they were always disagreeing with each other. They had different definitions for what is a gang, why do kids join gangs, and how to prevent. To me, first of all, they're asking the wrong question. The question is not why do kids join gangs, Not if you want an answer. The best question to ask if you want an answer is, why do most kids not join gangs? Because that's the truth. Most kids in schools, any school or any neighborhood, most of the kids are not in a gang. It's a small minority of kids in that collective school yard and collective neighborhood that are in the gang. Now, what's the difference between this home where the child is not in a gang and this home neighbor whose child is in a gang? I think the answer is obvious. It has to do with the home that they are being brought up in, okay? And that's why I do Parents on a Mission, one of the reasons. But the point I'm making here in building safe and healthy communities, and when we're teaching our kids about community is when, of course, kids are going to graffiti and trash and get in gangs and hurt neighbors and other kids because they have no appreciation for the history of their family, the history of the neighborhood, the history of the country. And if we're not teaching those things or if they're not learning them in school or other places, Mom and Dad, we should take the responsibility and talk to our kids about our family, who we are, good or bad. We don't have to hide things. I, I don't have a good history. My father was an alcoholic, and I've learned some things recently about him that I never knew, having another family, a brother that I never knew. Just those things happen, but I shared that with my kids. And again, I recently just found that out. I never knew that. My brother and sisters, we recently just found that out, but we shared it. What am I saying? Just as in the story, the grandparents started teaching the history of the people in the community about the community. And what I'm saying is that not only is that important, but also the history of our country, good and bad. Why? Because it gives children a reason and a sense to choose to be loyal, to choose to belong, to choose to pledge allegiance. That's what the Pledge of Allegiance is all about. You're pledging allegiance to a country. Now, I don't want to get into all that right now because our country has a lot of issues, so that's another subject. I'm just talking about your children pledging loyalty to you. Mom and Dad pledging their loyalty and their allegiance to you, to your family, to Mom and Dad, to Grandma and Grandpa, to Uncle and Aunt, to brother and sister. How does that happen? That's going to happen because we teach them and we demonstrate it to one another in our home. As I always say, Mom and Dad, the community does not build your home. You are building the community. You are raising citizens of the community. And the question is, what kind of citizen do we send into the community every day? Where do citizens come from? Citizens go to church. They don't come from church. Citizens go to school. They don't come from school. They go to work. They don't come from work. Citizens come from the home. We are raising citizens of the community, and your neighbors and your school teachers and the policemen and the community is depending on you, Mom and Dad, to raise somebody who knows how to respect authority, who knows how to get along, who knows how social values, who knows how to pay attention, who knows how to treat other people with respect. And where do they learn that? They should be learning it at your dinner table, at night when they go to bed. What goes on in your home on a daily basis, the culture that you're building, the nest, the refuge that they come home to Is it a refuge where they can feel at peace and safe from all the garbage and all the junk and all the temptations and all the maybe threats that are out in the community, out in the barrio, out in the neighborhood? But when they come home, it's a place of refuge, it's a place of peace, it's a place of safety. And so now that community that you build— are building in your home, those are citizens that are translating that and taking it out to the school, to the neighborhood, to the street, to their friends. And they become a light in the darkness. And we don't have to be afraid because we're inoculating our children with integrity and love and peace and honesty. And character. And so all the temptations— or the metaphor is all the toxins that are out there, all the diseases that we could call temptations, and the violence and all of that— where our kids are immune to that because we are inoculating them with our family values. We are building a safe community, not dependent on the community. We're doing it in our home, and our home is building a safe community. That's what this story is all about. And then the last thing I wanna share is that children must be taught the value of community, unity, and diversity. Now, in the story, remember the kids, they rejected people that were not like them, people that they weren't used to, the drunk, the guy that went to jail, and the lady that had maybe some mental challenges because she would be singing to herself and things like that. None of that is strange to us today in the life that we're living. And we have all these diverse issues now. And one of the things that is being torn apart, at least to me, what I see is a lack of unity in diversity. Isn't that what university is all about? Unity in diversity, university and the community. But that's not what we have today. What we have is all this division and vitriol and ugliness and arguing because you're not like me and I'm not like you, because you don't think like me and I don't think like you, you don't dress like me and I don't dress like you, you don't believe like me, your politics are different, your values are different. Your sexual orientation is different. All of these things. And we get caught up in agreement that unless you agree with me, you're my enemy. That's what's happening today. That's what we've seen. This cancel culture, this Black Lives Matter thing, forcing people to say that, say Black Lives Matter. No, I believe all lives matter. But if you said that, oh, you're a racist. And all this racist accusation, homophobia. We have this whole transgender issue. We have gay marriage. We have all these diverse issues. Now listen to what I'm saying. This is an opportunity. Those things are opportunity to teach our children to live in unity with diversity. To live in love with— and peace, and not judging other people. Now, I'm not saying that I agree with all these different lifestyles or political stands or whatever, but you're not going to talk to me because I didn't get vaccinated? I'm not invited to your home for Thanksgiving because I didn't get vaccinated, because I'm not wearing a mask? Because I'm pro-life and you're pro-choice, because I voted for Trump and you didn't. I'm not saying I'm just making that up, but whether I did or not, what difference does it make who I voted for? If I got vaccinated or not, if I wear a mask or not, if I'm pro-life or pro-choice, we could go on. If I'm Republican and you're Democrat, and so now we can't have Christmas together. We can't have Thanksgiving together. We can't have holidays together because we don't agree. That, my brother and sister, is sad and it is wrong. Now I will back, back up a little bit as far as the vaccination. Now if you really believed, if you really believed about the COVID-19 and that it was a deadly disease and that people were gonna— and you were going to be infected if other people were not vaccinated Okay, although all of that has been proven to be a lie, it was not true. But if you believed it at the time, because we didn't know what was going on, everybody was scared. And so, but as time has gone on, whole families were separated on issues like that. That's what I'm talking about. What about being respectful of other people's point of view, worldview? I'm a born-again Christian. I have a worldview. Who's not safe today speaking about their worldview are born-again Christians. And gay people have gone through that too, and transgender people have gone through that too. And again, so it's not about agreement, it's about just respecting other people's point of view. Now, where are kids going to learn this? I could talk about racists. How do people become a racist? Are you going to tell me that children are born racist? No, they're not born racist. They're taught that. They learn that, okay? So that's the ugly part of it. But how about kids that are not judgmental, not prejudiced, not racist, that are not drawing these harsh lines of, of, uh, cancel culture and pushing you away and not wanting to talk to you or have anything to do with you because you don't believe like they do. You're not in the political aisle that they're on. That is destroying our country. It's destroying communities. And more importantly, and why I do what I do, it's destroying families. And so these are the kind of issues that we talk about in Parents on a Mission. What I shared with you today was the chapter 5 in the book Building Safe Communities, and the subtitle: History clearly affirms that family is the foundation of society. It is the building block of all civilizations. It is the glue by which everything is held together. So I'm encouraging you, Mom and Dad, number one, I'm encouraging you to purchase this book. You can go on my website, richardramos.com. And you can get it there, or you can go on Amazon and in the search window just type Richard R Ramos and all my books will come up. And I encourage you to buy this and read it. Now, if you don't want to do that, I have a video course online, an online course on my website. It's only $97, and I say only $97 because I promise you and guarantee you that is $100 to $200 under the price of other people who have these kinds of video courses online. That, that's what they charge. And the reason I dropped my price wasn't for a gimmick. It was because I know my audience and I wanted to make it as affordable— the value that you're getting, I wanted to make it affordable. Okay, so $97, 15 videos, all of them are 15 minutes around or so, and I'm going through the whole curriculum, all of it, everything that I teach on reconciliation, how to win loyalty, on how to grow as a parent, the proper use of discipline, the proper use of authority, all the basic things about being a mom and a dad. But today I'm talking about the chapter that I talked about is How to Build a Safe Community. It's in your home. It's building your children as solid men and women who are givers, producers in the community, not takers, who are not selfish, who know how to serve. Who know how to respect authority, who know how to obey authority and follow the rules in class, show up on time, be a good employee, go the extra mile. Who doesn't want to live in a neighborhood like that? Who doesn't want to live in a community like that where everybody in the community is, hey, how's it going? What's happening? What can I do for you? But you know what it takes usually for people to do that? It usually takes a crisis, unfortunately. If there's an earthquake, if there's a fire, if there's a flood, if there's a, a hurricane, if there's war, if there's a 9/11 or something like that, then wow, everybody, you don't care about religion you are, I don't care about your gender, they don't care about any of that. They want help. Help me. And what are we going to do, not help them? Because, oh, but wait a minute, aren't you pro-life? Oh, I can't help you. No, that doesn't happen, or at least it better not. It shouldn't. That doesn't happen. What happens is people are desperate, and we are living in desperate times right now. We have a— how many more crises do we need? So As I said though, Mom and Dad, we cannot depend on the government. I think that's obvious by now. We cannot depend on politicians. We can't even depend on the school system, on the universities, on schools to build our family, to build our kids, to build our safety and a culture of healthiness and love and peace. We have to do it. We have to do it. You and I, us, we parents on a mission, we're the ones that get it done. And I'm inspiring you. I hope I'm encouraging you, and I want to equip you with this book and my other resources on my website, richardrramos.com. To be an answer for the times that we're living in, to be a solution for the times that we're living in, to be a light for the times that we're living in. You've been listening to the Parent Whisperer podcast. I'm Richard R Ramos. I really appreciate all of you who have subscribed, and if you're new, I would encourage you and really be grateful if you would subscribe to the podcast, if you will leave a review, if you will click on the like button, and most of all, that you would share it with other parents, family, and friends who you know that this would be a help to them. So thank you for listening, and always remember, Mom and Dad, Parents on a Mission, is not for bad parents. It's for good parents like you who just want to get better. See you next time.