Wait til Dad gets home

My oldest son has always been different. He is a funny and loving person but from the time he could crawl, he was independent and wanted to do what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it. Mule headedness runs in my family. There is a saying that you can always tell a Clark, you just can’t tell them much. This certainly held true for him when he was young. I am thankful that he has grown into a fine man.

When he was about ten, I told him he couldn’t do something and he looked at me and boldly said, “Wait til my father gets home. He’ll straighten you out.” At ten, he thought I was totally unreasonable. To him, I didn’t know anything and he was certain his father would back him up and set me straight. This situation did not develop without me allowing it to. For years I had given up my position of authority and had allowed the children’s father to handle everything. Since my son had been a baby, I had failed to assert myself as a figure of authority. I had no backbone.

That night when his father came home from work there was a great deal of straightening out done and I was one who did it. I had reached my limit. For the first time in years I demonstrated backbone and began asserting myself as an authority figure and as a person. It hasn’t always been an easy journey and I certainly wasn’t comfortable with it at first. Taking control and establishing your right as a person of authority requires that you exercise it regularly and that you become comfortable with it.

Like me, many citizens have sat back and let the government run the show. We have failed to exercise our authority and have allowed the government to take greater control of our lives. As voters we have not sought knowledge about the backgrounds of the people who run for government. Frequently, we vote for the party rather than the man or woman. We have become complacent with being party members instead of American citizens and independent thinkers. Many times when I was younger, I voted on someone without knowing anything about them and what they stood for. Sometimes, I didn’t vote at all.

It appears that the only requirements for someone to run for office is that they be approved by their party, be able to afford an advertising campaign and a publicist who can spin things. How hard headed are we that we want to continue to elect the same type of people and that we expect different results. We need to straighten things out in government, but not by electing different names with the same qualifications. It is time to do some research about the candidates show electoral backbone. Don’t expect someone else to straighten out the problems for us, it is our responsibility to elect better candidates.