Another Money Lesson From Dad For Father’s Day 2022: Tax Deductible Gifts

“I like to make gifts to things that are tax deductible!”

Yet Another Money Lesson From Dad

This personal money story for Father’s Day 2022 discusses the subject of taxes and once again is inspired by my father. Here on the Big Words Blog Site, I’ve crafted several stories discussing how Dad’s sage wisdom has impacted my life, whether through a direct lesson, or from my observations of him. Some of his most poignant lessons have involved money and arguably created my love for financial literacy, though he and I don’t see eye to eye on everything money related today. One of Dad’s most important lessons involves an area that is the bane of some people’s existence, while being a pillar to the wealth-building strategy of others, taxes.

We’re All Playing One Big Financial Game

Recently it occurred to me that we’re all playing one big financial game, now a video game in our modern technological age. Certainly, money isn’t the sole key to happiness, but life is certainly better when you have an abundance of it versus a scarcity. I would thus define winning this game as having an abundance of it versus just scraping by and financially struggling. Among the factors that go into winning the game include: the family you come from, personal (and family) life choices, your financial IQ, personal grit or ambition, delaying gratification and your current environment.

Your financial IQ may be the most important of all the factors I listed, and it can be impacted by the other factors. This concept is covered in numerous books. Your financial IQ includes your ability to earn money, your ability to save money, your ability to invest money, your understanding of credit, your understanding of insurance and understanding taxes. If you’re born into a high financial IQ family, you will likely learn all these principles starting from the crib. If not, you must learn them along the way, if at all. Furthermore, learning them is going to be impacted by your own personal drive and curiosity. For now, let’s focus on many people’s least favorite topic, taxes.

Taxes: What They’re For And Paying Your Fair Share

First, I want to admit that I don’t know everything about taxes. I would highly encourage readers to subscribe to economist, Antony Davies’, YouTube channel entitled Words & Numbers. It’s one of my new favorite channels because it’s not politics driven, but instead economics and facts driven. I’m currently reading his and James Harrigan’s book, Cooperation and Coercion. Upon listening to his content, one of the things that you immediately start to understand is that our politicians are not always honest with us about who pays what and how much in terms of taxes. Furthermore, they’re not always clear about the ramifications for the tax changes they promote. Often, in the pursuit of a political office, they incite class warfare.

In any case, while some taxes are necessary for our municipal, state and federal governments to perform their tasks, there can be too many taxes and they can have harmful effects on everyone. Furthermore, a part of one’s financial health is managing your taxes. The more you read, learn and start understanding about money, the more you start learning that in our ‘progressive’ tax system, not everyone is taxed the same and there are a number of reasons why.

As extensively covered in the Rich Dad Poor Dad books, employees are taxed differently than businesses (small and large). As an employee, your tax burden changes the more earned income you generate, and you start to lose deductions the more your salary increases. In the above-mentioned Rich Dad books, there is a clear distinction between high income professionals and business owners, and each has different rules in our current tax code. As employees, one of your tools for diminishing taxes is tax deductible gifts or donations.

Tax Deductible Giving

Around the time I moved in with Dad for my postdoctoral fellowship, a couple of things coalesced in my mind in this area. First, I got a copy of the Cashflow 101 e-game which I played regularly on my personal computer. Just briefly, the game is designed to teach you financial literacy and the goal is to get out of the ‘rat race‘ (the realm of working 9-5), and onto the ‘fast track‘, or the realm of the wealthy, where you can live on your investments and pursue your dreams. One of the things I realized when playing the game was that the rat race contained yellow ’donation’ squares. When you landed on those squares, you had the option of donating money.

If you chose this option, you received extra rolls of the dice with multiple dice. I refused the option initially and then realized that there was an advantage to making donations. You also received greater opportunities to earn and invest. Finally you increased your likelihood of passing over ‘downsized’ squares which meant you lost money and turns. The underlying lesson was that you ultimately received rewards for giving. I’m not saying that you should give strictly to get, but in our financial system the government does allow you to write off gifts to certain entities and thus lowering your tax.

“Did you get your taxes done yet? Did you get your taxes done yet? Did you get your taxes done yet?” That’s all I heard the first tax season I moved in with Dad just after finishing graduate school. He literally walked through the house asking me if I had done my taxes. I didn’t know why he cared so much, but it started to scare me. Just finishing my doctoral training, a period in which I didn’t have much money, I owed the IRS tax money that year. For those unfamiliar with the process, we had to pay estimated taxes on our $17,000 to $22,000 graduate stipends every year. So yes, the poor do pay taxes too.

Reducing Your Taxes

“I like to make gifts to things that are tax deductible!” One day we were at Dad’s desk, and he had a pile of solicitations from his alma mater and other charities. He made his poignant declaration as he pondered them. He prepared his tax returns himself at that time and it was quite the ritual every year as I observed him.

In hindsight, Dad was probably also feeling some anxiety himself. He lived in one of the highest taxed states in the country – New York. He also owned his home outright and probably wasn’t going to get much in way of homeowner related deductions. In other words, he was likely going to have to make payments to the federal and state governments.

This explains his preoccupation at that time with tax deductible gifts. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the exact verbiage, but we did have a talk about making charitable gifts to certain entities and lowering your tax payment. It was my first time learning these lessons and I was in my late 20s. I know that my mother put money into church in my younger years, but we never talked about the gifts being tax deductible.

Where Can You Make Tax Deductible Gifts?

Well, I just named a big one which will make a lot of people bristle in our increasingly secular society, church. Whether you want to admit it or not, churches are businesses, some bigger than others. Some also do more good than others. Not all pastors, for example, take the tithes and offerings to the church to buy expensive suits, fleets of fancy cars and private jets. Some churches actually use the money raised for missionary activities and helping the poor.

That said, if you belong to a church and give regularly, you will have the opportunity to deduct at least a portion of that money from your tax liability, regardless of what the pastor and the church do with it once you drop it in the plate or donate online. This also explained why Dad kept giving tithes and offerings to his church even when he stopped physically attending. Each week he dutifully wrote his check and put in the church’s envelope with the same smiley face on it. That smiley face always made me laugh. I or my then stepmother, would take it to the church on his behalf.

If you don’t attend church, what about making donations your alma mater? My alma maters are Johnson C. Smith University and the University of Michigan. Many people make generous donations to their alma maters every year. It’s the consistent donations from alumni that ensure that their alma maters maintain solid futures.

Other institutions experience anemic alumni giving and are not so fortunate, causing them to face a loss of accreditation and/or closure. The Historically Black Colleges and Universities are a good example of this. There are also scholarship funds like the United Negro College Fund. Furthermore, throughout the year and around the major holidays, there are regularly solicitations to feed the hungry, especially around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. When watching TV and now online, there are opportunities to give for pretty much any cause around the world whether it be feeding hungry people, or relief from wars.

Again, giving is a wealth-building and maintenance strategy for certain demographics. Come election time, the wealthy regularly get demonized for not paying their ‘fair share’ of taxes relative to the middle and lower classes. I would once again point readers back to the above-mentioned book Cooperation and Coercion for a more substantive discussion of the validity of these claims. I’ll end this point by stating that the charitable giving and philanthropy these high net worth demographics make isn’t highlighted as much (or enough).

Giving Is A Personal Choice

There are several contexts for giving and generosity. It’s something I’ve had to conceptually piece together over my lifetime. My parents helped. The Rich Dad Poor Dad books helped. Dave Ramsey and his Financial Peace University curriculum helped. Life experiences have contributed as well. It’s been a process.

After finishing school and launching off into the adult world of work, one quickly learns that at any given time there can be multiple financial concerns and considerations pulling at you depending on your lifestyle. Perhaps you don’t earn that much money. Perhaps you’re just starting your career and live in an expensive metropolis. Perhaps you have a large student loan payment or are encumbered with some other massive debt. Perhaps your family is dependent on you as the breadwinner, and not just in the context of a nuclear family. In any case, sometimes you might have your hands full just getting your own financial house in order, and you don’t have money available to give.

It may not make sense to willingly give money away. I think the underlying principle in this world, though, is that when you bless others, you get blessed. As my mother often says, “It’s in the Bible,” and there are numerous scriptures which discuss this such as Proverbs 11:24-26 (Give freely and become more wealthy; be stingy and lose everything. The generous will prosper; those who refresh others will themselves refreshed. People curse those who hoard their grain, but they bless the one who sells in time of need.) If you’re not into biblical scripture, just know that under our current progressive tax code as described above, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allows you to deduct monetary gifts to nonprofit entities from your tax liability. And finally, there are advantages to paying fewer taxes or none at all.

Closing Thoughts On Tax Deductible Gifts

Thank you for reading this piece. I didn’t write this narrative to tell anyone how to give as everyone’s life is unique. Furthermore, I am not a financial professional, and I am not rendering advice. My intent is to present the information and let the reader decide. This story was rooted in one of many memorable experiences with my father, a retired educator, and it just so happens that I’m publishing it around Father’s Day 2022. Here on the Big Words Blog Site, most of the content published these days is from customers by way of shorter, informational pieces. As the owner of the site I like to publish something of my own from time to time. I started writing this piece months ago, and with the many other things I have to do, I was only able to finish it now.

Author’s Thoughts/Reflections

Tax deductible gifts are a really big deal, and many people give with their tax liabilities in mind. I’m recalling a couple of our Johnson C. Smith University Washington DC Alumni Chapter meetings where members wondered how their gifts to the school would be handled in terms of tax, if they were given through the chapter itself instead of independently.

We often learn a lot from our parents through observation. Many of the life lessons from my father have been money-related. Many of those lessons have involved being very careful with it which can be a strength in some contexts, while it can be a source of conflict and ire in others. As with most things in life, I’ve learned a balance is good and optimal.

The Big Words LLC Newsletter

For the next phase of my writing journey, I’ve started a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. Regards.

Father’s Day 2020: Some More of Dad’s Tough But Helpful Money Lessons

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“How much money do you have saved in the bank? You ONLY have $2,000 to $3,000 saved? That’s NOT money!”

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A Quick Plug

Hello. Thank you for clicking on this link and I hope you enjoy this essay. Writing a book was the genesis of me blogging and becoming a video content creator. I am close to publishing part one of my book project entitled, The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Please consider visiting the page to learn more about the project and see promotional content I’ve created surrounding the project. And now on to our feature presentation.

A Disclaimer

Before I start this story, I want to issue a warning to the ‘low attention span’ people. This post is roughly 2000 words. Thus, if you can’t focus for that long, feel free to leave now go and read something else. I can assure you though that this is a fun and educational story with some very important points at the end. With that, I’m going to jump in.

Another Dad Story

Well it’s that time of year again, Father’s Day. As such, just as I have prepared a 2020 post for Mother’s Day, I have also prepared a 2020 post for Father’s Day. Like my first ever Father’s Day post on my blogging platform, this story involves a subject that’s near and dear to my heart, money and wealth building. As with all my Dad stories, this one made a lasting impression on me as I hope that this does for any readers.

In his prime and slightly beyond, my Dad was a force to be reckoned with, one which struck fear into me, even in my early 30s. I lived with him in New York State’s Capital Region during my postdoctoral fellowship which turned out to be an educational experience on several different levels. It was a surreal two and a half years in hindsight that forever changed me. Some of the changes were due to external factors while some were due to internal factors.

Lessons from Rich Dad

Just before leaving Ann Arbor, MI for the Albany area, I picked up Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad book and discovered the worlds of financial literacy and wealth building, worlds I didn’t know anything about at that time. Most of my life I had my eyes set on being an employee. Reading about being and an investor and all the concepts associated with it was exciting though. According to Kiyosaki, there were people becoming wealthy not by slogging off to work everyday and punching a clock, but instead by acquiring financial asset investments.

In addition to Kiyosaki’s books, I purchased a copy of his game, Cashflow 101, the electronic version. Unlike the board game version which you have to play with other people, I could sit down at my PC and play every night. The goal of the game is to get out of the Rat Race and onto the Fast Track. For those who have never played the game, you must choose a profession. The chosen profession comes with a salary, and a certain number of assets and liabilities. The cost per child varies with profession as well.

A Lifelike Game

The game is realistic in that high income professionals like doctors, lawyers and airline pilots make more money than the janitors or the web designers. They also have greater expenses and usually more student loans in the case of the doctor and lawyer. They might even have loans under debt review as a result.

Take a look at my 2018 Father’s Day blog post which has a special significance for my brother, my father and me. That post coincidentally involved careers in medicine and law which Dad wanted my brother and me to pursue. Going back to the game, individuals playing the game must figure out how to generate enough passive income from their investments to pay all of their bills monthly and annually. This allows them to become financially free and moves them onto the Fast Track, and live the life of wealthy business owners and investors.

On the road to getting out of the Rat Race, in addition to getting the opportunities to participate in stock and real estate deals, participants sometimes also have children, have to purchase doodads (random expenses or luxuries which drain your money), and face unexpected crises like car accidents, all of which can act as financial setbacks. This forces players to think about their objectives creatively and still figure out ways to get out of the Rat Race. In terms of the game, I’ll stop there. It’s an intoxicating game, and it’s one that I highly recommend. Suffice it to say for now, that as I played and started learning, I started experiencing a paradigm shift and aspired to do the same things in real life, things that I would later find were easier said than done. By the way, Dad saw me regularly playing the game and probably thought I was nuts.

Real Estate Investing and Taking Action

One of the things Robert Kiyosaki discussed in Rich Dad Poor Dad was real estate investing and I became interested in it. Some friends of mine in the area were also interested in it and turned me onto our local real estate investing club which I won’t name. There were monthly meetings where the President encouraged us to get into deals and to, “take action.” There were also big time real estate speakers like the land lording guru Don Beck, whose program involved putting your rental properties on ‘cruise control’ and also creating rental leases that were as protective as possible for the land lords against the problem tenants.

Most of the club members were seniors in terms of age and my two friends and I may have been the only minorities there. Coincidentally an older woman, named Mary, agreed to mentor me. Mary had been in the game for a while and had already started acquiring properties. I think she had her Multiple Listing Service (MLS) certification and had the ability to search its databases. I met another younger guy, whom I’ll call Tyler, who also had the wealth-building mindset and was living it. We talked one Saturday during a field trip we took around our area to look at properties. Tyler turned me on to T. Harv Ecker’s book, Secrets of The Millionaire Mind, which is a short but good read.

Like our President, Mary also encouraged me to do my first deal and we started looking at properties in the Albany area. I recall once going into an empty brownstone and looking around with her near the Albany state capital where my research lab was located. We eventually found a duplex in the downtown area, with a flat roof and one tenant living in it already. Mary suggested that I could live in one unit for a little and rent the other unit out (owner occupied status). Eventually I could move out and ‘cash flow’ the entire property. It all sounded cool and a little scary. I wanted to do it, but how would I do such a thing?

Early Lessons in Real Estate Investing

For those unfamiliar with purchasing real estate, there are usually three critical items lenders want to see: employment history of some sort (especially if you’re new), your credit score and savings of some kind (over a series of months, not random gifts). Depending how savvy you are, you may be able to structure your deal so that you don’t have to pay the closing costs up front. I just barely qualified in terms of my credit score. It wasn’t great at the time, but it was just good enough. I’d only finished my Ph.D. one to two years earlier. I paid my bills on time, but I was over-leveraged credit-wise for numerous reasons which I won’t discuss here. Finally, I had $2,000 to $3,000 in the bank, but I knew that I would need more. Where would I get it from though? Enter Dad!

Now before I go on, let me warn you that this part of the story gets a little painful, but exciting at the same time. I could save this detail until the end, but it’s worth pointing out here. One of the things this experience (and others) taught me going forward was that while we are all physically living on this world together, we can all exist in different worlds and have different world views. Science is a world of its own. Salsa dancing is a world of its own. Writing is a world of its own. Real estate investing is a world of its own. Being an employee is a world of its own. Each world has its own unique set of rules and mindsets.

Dad Gets Involved

Dad was an employee and an excellent at budgeting and saving. He was also risk averse money-wise, and he had his own personal real estate experience that turned him against land lording forever. According to Dad, he once had a tenant in his lower unit, an older woman. According to Dad, he went downstairs to collect the rent one day, and the woman slid into a supernatural trance where her eyes rolled back and her ears pointed upwards. From that point on Dad never wanted anything else to do with real estate investing and land lording, no matter what the upside was.

I don’t know whether Mary suggested it, or by default I decided to ask him for a loan, but after much internal deliberation, I did and that’s when things got, how shall I say, exciting. I knew my father and lacked confidence when asking him for the financial help. I was pretty scared actually. He didn’t say no immediately, but instead looked at me with a blank stare and told me he’d think about it. I intuitively knew that instead of simple yes or no, it was going to turn into a long drawn out process, and Dad didn’t disappoint.

Dad Weighs In

Dad did, in fact, think about it. His thinking stretched from days to weeks which for me was like death by a thousand cuts as one of my favorite YouTube content creators often says. He asked me questions about my investment idea often from the other room when I least expected them. In some instances, we were in the same room and he’d ask me questions about it with his back to me with no eye contact. Yes, I know it’s odd, but it was just how he communicated with me at the time. At some point I told him to just forget about it, but it continued.

“How much money do you have in the bank?” I don’t remember when in this ordeal that he asked me this question, but I just remember that he asked it. The question suddenly made me feel defensive, naked, picked over and violated. “The bank will want to know how much money you have!” Dad was right about this as I found out in the future when applying for mortgages and refinancing on my own. I actually uttered these same words in a money-related dispute with an ex-girlfriend; that didn’t go over well, by the way, so be careful in those instances.

“I have $2,000 to $3,000 in my savings and my Self-Directed Roth IRA,” I pensively replied.

$2,000 to $3,000 is NOT Money!

“That’s NOT money!” Dad quickly and sharply declared with the precision of an assassin. His words were cutting, and I felt insulted and angry afterwards. I didn’t understand why this whole thing had to drag out like this, and I didn’t understand why we couldn’t just sit down and have a simple step by step discussion about why it wasn’t a good or bad idea. The thing I learned later though was that Dad was right.

What Dad meant by saying that, “$2,000 to $3,000 is NOT money,” was that it wasn’t enough money to safely do what I was thinking about. As in all cases, money is relative. There are people who don’t have $400 saved up and there are people who don’t have $1,000 saved up, so to those people, $2,000 to $3,000 is a lot of money. Speaking of $1,000, losing $1,000 can hurt if you’re not prepared to lose it, which I did when trying to do a real estate deal one to two years after moving to the Washington, DC area.

Some Real Estate Investing Tips

I want to tie up this blog post with my major learning points from this story. They are as follows:

• It’s best to invest safely: Whether you’re investing in real estate, stocks or something else, it’s important to do so from a place of safety. At the time of writing this, to me that means allocating funds strictly for that purpose separately from your essential expenses. This way, if the investment falls through, you’ll still have a place to live, food to eat, clothes on your back, etc. Investing is different from outright gambling, but think about how much more fun a trip to a place like Las Vegas is when you have enough money with which to gamble. Don’t invest your emergency money, the rent or the mortgage. This leads to my next point which involves friends and relatives.

• Be careful about involving the finances of friends and relatives in your business/investing ideas: From 30 plus years of being his son, I knew that Dad was risk-averse and didn’t play around with his money, but his not loaning me the money turned out to be the best thing for both of us because it would’ve poisoned our relationship, potentially beyond healing. I wouldn’t have felt comfortable around him, and it would’ve always been on his mind whenever he thought about me. If you have a money idea, I think the best things is to figure out how to launch it on your own, or until its far enough along for others to see the upside (and benefit for them). This way, if you take the loss, you take it on your own. If you are going to partner with friends or relatives, make sure you share the common vision and that they understand the risks. Finally, I’ve learned that when you’re launching an idea, whether it’s stocks or some other opportunity, savvy investors/partners are more likely to participate in your idea if they can see that you’ve already thought out and invested a significant amount of your own resources into it, unless of course you have an extensive track record of doing what you’re proposing.

• Real estate is a fun and potentially rewarding area, but a complex and dangerous one too: Robert Kiyosaki’s Cashflow 101 is a fun and educational game which to this day I highly recommend. It’s just that thought, a game played with fake money. The game is designed to expand and transform your mindset. Getting out in the field and taking action which most real estate teachers teach, is a different matter. Getting an investment property was a good idea, and Dad admitted that, if I recall correctly. However, not only did I not have enough of my own money in the bank yet, it also wasn’t clear if I was staying in the area.

Levels of Experience

Now let me be clear. Am I saying not to own property out of state? Absolutely not. There are investors who own property in other states or cities, and in some instances other countries. Most of them are experienced though. They have the systems in place to be able to do so, and in some instances, they’re partnering with other experienced and like-minded people.

Think about the martial arts. Dad was a Judo guy so let’s use Judo. The masters in martial arts dojos typically wear the brown and black belts, and one must practice and train hard to reach those levels after starting at the color white. Some trials and errors are involved in ascending to the brown or black belt levels which includes blood, sweat, tears, and being thrown to the mat innumerable times in this case. I would equate this to my lost $1,000 described above which I’ll revisit later on. In short, at the time of my asking Dad for that help, I was the equivalent of a white belt in the real estate dojo.

• Be careful who you share your dreams and aspirations with: Finally, I’ll just say that not everyone is going to understand your dreams and visions, so you can’t share them with everyone. This includes friends and relatives, and this is what Robert Kiyosaki meant towards the end of Rich Dad Poor Dad about finding new friends. Let me be clear in that this doesn’t mean discarding your old friends. It just means that if people don’t understand the world you’re operating in, have had a negative experience in it, or are just not like-minded in general, they may kill your dream. This goes for significant others and love interests as well. So, for your own sanity, be mindful.

Conclusions

So that’s all I have to say on this matter, and I hope that this was educational for someone. It was a bitter situation to go through at the time, but I can look back and laugh at it now. I can also admit that Dad’s response towards me helped me see things from a new perspective in terms of the world around me regarding personal finances, dating and mating, and finally, when being approached by friends and/or relatives to help them start their own ideas like coffee businesses, for example.

The Big Words LLC Newsletter

For the next phase of my writing journey, I’m starting a monthly newsletter for my writing and video content creation company, the Big Words LLC. In it, I plan to share inspirational words, pieces from this blog and my first blog, and select videos from my four YouTube channels. Finally, I will share updates for my book project The Engineers: A Western New York Basketball Story. Your personal information and privacy will be protected. Click this link and register using the sign-up button at the bottom of the announcement. If there is some issue signing up using the link provided, you can also email me at [email protected] . Best Regards.

Parental Alienation: Helping Men Stay As Fathers

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and a key focus is Health/Wellness. Despite current beliefs and trends, it’s most healthy for children to grow up with both parents. To reverse these trends, it’s important to think about what can be done to keep fathers around. The following contributed post is entitled, Parental Alienation: Helping Men Stay As Fathers.

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No one ever hopes to go through a divorce but in modern society, divorce seems to be just as common as marriage. When this does occur, legally, it seems like there is a flaw in our system. Just 18% of fathers are given custody of their children. That’s a shocking statistic when you think about it. Fathers have to fight for the right to see their own children and still remain a positive force in their children’s upbringing. Anyone can see from a mile away that this is not fair. Regardless of what the parents feel about each other, the children should not be deprived of seeing both parents equally. This isn’t about the father versus the mother, it’s about giving our children a good upbringing and being a part of their lives without it being unfair for one side or the other. Parental alienation is almost exclusively felt on the father’s side, so what can we do about this?

Realize what fathers are

Both men and women bring different qualities to a child’s life. We often talk about great mothers are in the mainstream media, but we never get to hear how good an impact the father can have too. Fathers are known to teach children about hard work and standing up for themselves. Life lessons that will serve children well throughout their entire life. However fathers are also more likely to teach kids about finances and how they should take care of the money they earn. Mortgages, investments, pensions and much more are often discussed between fathers and their sons or daughters. Fathers also are more likely to teach their kids to be hardy, to tough it out and be strong. Although mothers can also do these things, it’s fathers are usually play this role in our children’s lives.

Not just a paycheck

Not only do fathers have to fight for their right to see their kids but very often, the family courts turn them into walking talking paychecks. However you never know when you’re going to fall on hard times and if you’re barely making enough to support yourself, paying child support could push you below the poverty line. If you need help to perhaps lower the payments you make speak to a child support attorney who is a specialist in this field. They know the rules around this like the back of their hand so they can find a way to explain to the courts in a convincing manner of your situation. No father wants to see their children go without, but it’s also not helpful to be so hounded for money that you end up going bankrupt.

A distant figure

Fathers can be great forces in their children’s lives but if they are away from them for too long, they simply become a distant figure. It’s much harder to re-enter their lives when they’re grown up than it is when they’re small. So fathers should not give up the fight in the courts and make sure they get to raise their kids.

Parental alienation is a big problem all throughout the Western world. It’s not good enough that just 18% of fathers get child custody rights. We must realize that fathers play a huge role in the upbringing of children and cannot be replaced by the state.

How To Build A Great Father-Son Connection

A key focus of my blog is Health/Wellness. A key aspect of growing into a healthy man is a health father-son relationship. There certain keys to becoming a great father. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Build A Great Father-Son Connection.

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Raising children is one of the best and most rewarding jobs you’ll ever have in your life, but if can also be one of the most terrifying and confusing. You constantly doubt yourself and wonder if you’re messing them up at every turn, and although they say it gets easier as the years go on and you have more kids, it really doesn’t – it just becomes different.

Just as the relationship between a mother and daughter can often be a complex one, the relationship between a father and his son is equally complex. The main issues that men often face is that the way we’ve been brought up to view men is that they have to behave in a certain way – they’re not allowed to display emotion because it’s seen as weak, and although these paradigms are shifting within our society, it’s definitely taking a bit of time.

So, in this post we’re going to share with you some of our top tips for building a great father-son connection that will hopefully help you build an unshakeable bond with your son as he grows from a small child to a man you can be proud to say you raised.

Build mutual interests:

Whilst it’s important to let your son be his own person, as one of the foundations of building a connection with anyone lies in the commonalities you share, the same logic applies when building a connection with your son.

This isn’t to say you need to have every interest be the same – for example, he may like football and you prefer basketball, but then you can identify other areas where you share some common interests, such as fly fishing, so you can teach him how to fly fish, and even when he’s a child you can look for things that you may even want to develop as a common interest since often it’s the aspect of nostalgia that really creates an interest in the first place. If you’re worried that you and your son have no common interests, there’s likely going to be something – although it’s not impossible, it’s pretty rare for a parent and child to be real polar opposites in every area, and the funny thing about that is, even in cases where people think they’re polar opposites, they actually have so much in common but can’t actually see it because this commonalities in their personality, such as stubborness often causes a clash of personality.

Don’t wrap them in cotton wool:

It’s absolutely normal for a parent to want to protect their child at every turn, and we’re certainly not saying let them play with knives or go wandering away from home after dark – safety precautions should always be taken when it comes to your child and as the parent you get to say what boundaries you set around that because you do know best.

However, wrapping your son up in cotton wool and never doing things like playing rough or the typical things that fathers and sons do together and have done perfectly fine with for generations is something that could definitely cause problems for him later in life because he’ll be too afraid to do anything and could end up in some pretty dangerous situations if he doesn’t know how to take care of himself.

These things like wrestling with your son or even playing the occasional video game are great for bonding and as long as you’re keeping your communication open and letting him know that violence isn’t a solution to life’s problems, then you’re probably going to be doing just fine.

Make time for father-son activities:

As mentioned above, if you have some common interests that you and your son both enjoy, then why not take these to the next level and enjoy some father-son bonding time? Even if you haven’t yet established what your common interests are, then you can think of the things you enjoyed as a child, whether it was with your father or just with your friends. It can be things like playing football together, going to watch a game together, going hiking or camping, or even riding bikes or a hover board together. The point is, it’s really not so much about what you do, but more about the fact you’re doing it together and using that time to really focus on building your relationship and connection with your son.

Take on projects together:

Taking on projects with your son can, not only be a great way to bond and build your relationship, but it’s a great way to show him some responsibility, build his confidence and also be able to see that you trust him and believe in him enough to let him take on important tasks. Even just asking for his input in things like renovating the garage or fixing up your car will do wonders for his confidence and self-esteem, and although you may not notice the difference immediately, these are the things he’ll carry into his adult life and that will really have the biggest impact, so maybe start thinking about any projects you have or potentially could have that you could do together with your son.

Father’s Day 2018: Dad’s Doctor and his Lawyer, and a Discussion on Careers

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“Your brother is going to be my Doctor, and you’re going to be my Lawyer!”

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A Quick Plug

Father’s Day 2018

Happy Father’s Day. My 2017 Father’s Day blog post talked about some of my father’s life and money lessons, and there were many. I wrote some more about us in my second essay submitted to A Voice For Men entitled: Two very well-behaved boys left to figure things out on their own: Reflections on growing up ‘Blue Pill’, which discussed how my brother and I had to figure out several aspects of manhood on our own. There weren’t a lot of men around growing up, and there were limitations in what we were taught by the men we did know.

For this 2018 post, I’m going to go in a different direction and will discuss what Dad wanted both me and my brother to be career-wise, versus what we actually became. This piece isn’t an “ode to fathers” per se, but instead a set of thoughts and ideas based upon something my father said to us as children, which will serve as a jumping off point for things me and those in my circle regularly discuss today as adults – things that have impacted our family dynamics as the years have gone by. As described in my piece Challenging stereotypes and misconceptions in academic achievement, Dad’s fatherly guidance helped me reach my academic potential. He also stimulated me to start thinking about potential careers at an early age.

Envisioned Careers

“Your brother is going to be my Doctor, and you’re going to be my Lawyer!” Dad said on one of our summer visits in the mid-1980s. The three of us were crossing a street in downtown Schenectady, NY and he turned and gave his proclamation to the both of us – communicating with one of his hands – his signature style. Like many parents, Dad had his own plans for what we should be. Somewhere along the line, he determined that it should be a medical doctor and a lawyer, and as with everything Dad said, he said it with lots of authority, pretty much commanding us.

Not having either in my immediate family circle on either my mother’s or father’s side, I didn’t know much about what lawyers did. I had some idea of what medical doctors did because I had gone to see them on numerous occasions as a child. One of Dad’s first cousins was in fact a medical doctor, but we didn’t see him enough to be able to ask him about his career. In elementary school it hadn’t occurred to me what I wanted to be career-wise, though I got the inkling that it would be something scientific after really enjoying “Life Science” in the seventh grade – essentially beginner’s Biology. My brother had begun showing signs of being both artistic and creative.

But what made my father so enamored with medical doctors and lawyers in terms of careers for his sons? Dad was always one for stability which is why he became a junior high science teacher. Neither of his parents had gone to college, so he was a first-generation college graduate. From what I can see, some parents naturally want their children to do better than them. In the mid-1980s, the conventional wisdom was that medicine and law were two very high-profile professions which would lead to affluent and comfortable careers/lifestyles.

“I know that your grandfather would be very proud of you being a doctor and all,” Dad said on several occasions regarding my Ph.D. years later. He didn’t necessarily understand what my doctorate stood for, or the skills it represented, but the title of ‘doctor’ meant a lot to him – something I witnessed in the coming years both positively and negatively. Coincidentally, I think he initially discouraged me from pursuing a doctorate – potentially because he only knew Ph.D.s in the context of the school system, and not the ‘research’ and ‘regulatory’ worlds.

White Collar Careers

With one of the principles of my blog being “Critical Thought”, I believe it’s important to look at things in their entirety. So, while Dad wanted these two prestigious careers for us, what would it have taken for us to get into these two professions? The answer is it would’ve taken lots and lots of school for the both us and then, most likely, considerable debt to pay back. This is something very important to consider for parents and students looking to attend college to pursue ‘White-Collar’ careers.

In terms of higher education, thinking out the entire plan long-term is critical – considering the cost of the degree, how to get a quality degree for the least amount of money possible, what the expected salary will be on back end, and finally how much debt will need to be paid back. According to a 2014 article in Forbes, the average amount of debt for Law School graduates ranged from $84,000 to $122,158. Also, according to a recent 2018 article by Credit Donkey, the average medical school graduate finishes with $192,000 of debt.

Keep in mind that these are on top of however much debt was accrued during one’s undergraduate studies. The numbers probably weren’t as high thirty years ago, but it’s important to be mindful of blindly chasing certain careers based upon titles and prestige. If it’s something a student really wants to do, that’s different, but the costs still ought to be considered.

If you run the numbers and your prospects aren’t good, I would recommend not going into debt for that particular degree. A mentor recently taught me that the economy actually dictates the need for specific careers at a given time. I don’t know what the prospects were like for lawyers in the mid-1980s when Dad announced his wish for me, but as I progressed in my education, I heard more and more stories about the market being ‘saturated’ with them. I likewise heard that the landscape for medicine had changed, and in some ways, it wasn’t as lucrative a career as it once was.

In terms of my career, I figured it out as I went along. I had an interest in the biological sciences and thus followed that path. I pondered going to medical school at one point, but decided against it after a professor at Johnson C. Smith University encouraged me and some of my classmates to study up on what it entailed – the demands, the lifestyle, and the backend costs.

Blue Collar Careers and Skill Trades

It’s also important for students and parents to keep in mind what the student is good at, and where their gift/passion lies. While I turned out to be the son that was interested in the Biology, my brother’s gifts were completely different. He turned out to be a ‘design and build’ –type of guy. He had the gift for designing things, constructing things, taking them apart, and he was quite formidable with tools and devices. He started studying Architecture in college but didn’t finish, but in hindsight, he may have also been well suited for one of the ‘skill trades’ – something that didn’t come up as a child as college and ‘White-Collar’ careers were emphasized as opposed to ‘Blue-Collar’ careers.

Speaking of the trades, since finishing my own education, I’ve realized that there is power in learning one or more of the skill trades. There will always be the need to build and fix things. That includes: the electricity and plumbing in your home, airplanes we travel on, the public transportation vehicles we ride to work on every day, and so much more. If your refrigerator breaks down as mine did recently, for example, you either have to buy a new one or hire someone to come and fix it – unless you can do it yourself.

Unfortunately, our society looks down on the Blue-Collar careers in some ways, though they pay very, very well and don’t require the years of schooling doctors and lawyers need – the same is true for the debt required to train for the latter two careers. In my opinion, individuals who are proficient in the trades people are willing to pay for; and those who also have some business training, stand to make lots of money as they can do things like start their own companies and hire other people.

My brother never finished college and has become a bit of an inventor/entrepreneur which actually is the route that our technology giants like: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg took. There may have been some luck involved for each of them, but these men are reminders that in some instances, ideas and skills are more powerful than the degrees themselves. Today for example, there are quite a few individuals making significant incomes without being ‘degreed’ – those who can write code for Blockchain Technology applications for example. Also, while my brother isn’t degreed, he’s also not saddled with a significant debt payment of any kind – a tremendous advantage.

Financial Literacy Regardless of Field

As for me, depending on your belief system, I got lucky. I pursued a Ph.D. in a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) field at a time when the economy rewarded individuals with such degrees. What’s even more significant is that I finished only with a little bit of debt from my undergraduate studies. Because I pursued a STEM degree, I didn’t pay for any of my graduate studies so I didn’t have a hefty loan to pay back for those five to six years of graduate school. This brings me to my closing point. It wasn’t until I finished that phase of my science training that I realized that I was missing something very, very important – something some kids are given early, and something others stumble upon later in life if at all.

Regardless of whether or not you get a college degree, a trade or some sort of entrepreneurship, the critical piece is understanding money. Something not discussed much in our younger years was wealth-building – something that is possible for everyone, and independent of one’s career choice as it involves a specific set of behaviors that I’ve written about in my Net Worth and Debt Snowball pieces. Understanding the concepts of wealth-building: budgeting, living within one’s means, delaying gratification, investments, and ‘Compound Interest‘ – these are the keys to a great and bountiful life, not necessarily the careers and titles themselves, contrary to what many people think.

Prestige and titles are nice, but if you read Dr. Thomas Stanley’s The Millionaire Next Door, you’ll see that there are many high-income professionals who look the part, but who are actually struggling. In my blog post about the Tax Reform and Jobst Act, I referenced a 2016 article in the Washington Post entitled: The shocking number of Americans who can’t cover a $400 expense which showed that even some individuals making over six figures, surprisingly couldn’t cover such an emergency.

I never wanted to be one of those people. I may be different from most, but I’d rather secretly live nice and comfortable with a simple outward appearance, as opposed to looking wealthy and struggling behind closed doors. That’s a personal choice however – one which everyone must make for themselves.

Closing Thoughts

In closing, our parents sometimes have dreams of what they want us to be. Some kids actually go ahead and fulfill their parents’ dreams while others go their own way. In some instances, our parents can discourage us from what we really want to do based upon what they know and feel from their lives.

There is thus a complex set of decisions to be made based upon: what one really wants to do, their unique gifts, what they’re passionate about, and how they’ll be able to earn a living on the back end. In the end, the economy dictates what’s needed at that particular time – it will determine who gets hired and how much they will be paid. Lastly, no matter what path is chosen, the critical piece is understanding money. Once again, Happy Father’s Day.

Thank you for taking the time out to read this blog post. If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy:

• Two very well-behaved boys left to figure things out on their own: reflections on growing up ‘Blue Pill’
• Father’s Day 2017: reflections on some of Dad’s money and life lessons
• Mother’s Day 2018: Memories of my grandmothers
• Mother’s Day 2017: one of my mother’s greatest gifts, getting engaged, and avoiding my own personal fiscal cliff
• Challenging stereotypes and misconceptions in academic achievement
• The benefits and challenges of using articulate speech

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Mother’s Day 2018: Memories of My Grandmothers

A Quick Plug

My Grandmothers

Following my 2017 Mother’s Day blog post, I had to think long and hard about what to write for 2018. Not coming up with a topic for some time, I figured that I’d simply promote my 2017 post once again. That post touched a lot of people, and it talked about some advice my mother gave me about getting married – advice which helped save me and our family from bedlam and chaos. Recently while at the gym, a topic came to me for 2018 – a remembrance of both of my maternal and paternal grandmothers, and their lasting impressions on my life as a child, and now as an adult.

My Mother’s Mother and Time with Elders

As described in the story of my blog, I grew up in Buffalo, NY. Following my parent’s divorce, we returned to New York State’s western-most city where my mother grew up. With most of my aunts and uncles having fled Buffalo along with many other blacks in their peer group, my grandmother moved in with us – on top of us as most houses in the Buffalo were what I call ‘true’ duplexes. True duplexes are singular structures containing multiple units, all under one mortgage. Each unit has its own living room, bathroom, kitchen and multiple bedrooms – something you don’t see here in the Washington, DC market – something I plan to revisit in greater detail in another post where I’ll discuss some of my adventures in learning how to invest in real estate.

My maternal grandmother was a very beautiful woman as a younger woman and as a senior, and there were always suitors. I didn’t fully appreciate it then, but an advantage I’ll always have over my younger cousins is that I was able to spend quality time with my maternal grandmother during my childhood. Some of my first cousins just under me age-wise either didn’t get to spend time with her due to life circumstances, or didn’t appreciate their time with her while she was still in good health.

It is really important that we all spend as much time with our elderly relatives as we can. Even if that means just popping over a few times a week to visit a grandmother in a care home. We just never know how much time we are going to get with someone.

We do not want to look back at the past and notice the missed opportunities or the questions that have been left unanswered. Always ask your loved ones all the questions you want to ask, even if it is just a question about your family tree or what their favorite color is. One day you might wish you had if you do not do it at the time.

Talks with Grandma

Curiosity was always in my nature. As stated in the story of my blog, I always enjoyed hearing my elders talk and tell their stories. As result, I regularly asked my maternal grandmother questions about varying topics and sought her wisdom. Sharing everything would literally take volumes to write, so I’ll just share a few.

“My children are all different Anwar,” Grandma told me more times than I can count. It was a simple, but profound statement. Over the years she observed that while her eight children were born to the same mother, ate the same food, and for the most part learned the same set of values, each of them figuratively ‘scattered’ into eight different directions – some closely adhering to what they’d been taught while others went their own way, setting in motion the inevitable family dramas, fallouts, squabbles and rivalries. She also strongly believed that in terms of family, “The stronger ones should take care of the weaker ones.”

Nature vs Nurture and Interpreting Bible Scriptures

I didn’t know it at the time, but grandma taught me my first lesson about the concept of “Nature vs. Nurture”. This was many years before I had heard of Dr. Thomas Sowell, Dr. Walter E. Williams, or Malcolm Gladwell. It was decades before I met the mentor whom I regularly discuss this concept with – the same mentor who encouraged me to list out the principles of my blog. With such vast differences in one family, isn’t it logical to expect such variability in a whole society of millions of people?

Are our lives extensions of what we were taught in our familial ecosystems? Are our lives the very essence of who we are as individuals? Or are our lives mixtures of both? What I’ve seen in my own family suggests that our lives are mixtures of both. What have you seen in your familial ecosystems?

“People should only speak in ‘tongues’ if there is someone there to interpret what’s being said,” Grandma told me in my late teens. I was raised in a black ‘Baptist’ church in the north. I thus had no idea what I was in for when transferring to Johnson C. Smith University in the region affectionately called the ‘Bible Belt’ – a region where Christianity is much more fanatical, militant, supernatural, and in some instances, cultish.

I had never seen so many people catching the ‘Holy Ghost’, running around their church services, kicking things over, and ‘speaking in tongues’. It all collectively scared me initially and shook whatever faith I had at the time. My maternal grandmother was the first to tell me that this speaking in tongues thing, which was essentially a verbal revelation from the ‘Holy Spirit’, is something not to be done lightly and for show – something that my peers from the southeast seemed to be engaging in.

Fairness and Raising Children for Society

My maternal grandmother shared things with me about our family, and about the past that I didn’t hear anywhere else. If I recall correctly, she encouraged my mother to let my brother and I form our own opinions about our father, and to also allow us to have a relationship with him. She further encouraged my mother not to demonize him. Apparently, there are a lot of mothers who vengefully keep their children away from their fathers – demonizing them once their romantic relationship breaks down – often to the detriment of the children.

As described in my second essay for A Voice for Men titled “Two very well-behaved boys left to figure things out on their own”, I heard my maternal grandmother discuss the differences between being “Providers” and “Fathers” – something which gave me deep insight into what’s expected of a man should he sire children. Apparently, a man can be one without being the other – the ideal situation is that he’s both. As I got older I found that many of my peers in Black America had neither.

“You raise your children for society.” My maternal grandmother never said this to me a directly. It was one of my grandmother’s philosophies/values my mother shared with me. It meant that your children weren’t just things that you carelessly brought into the world. If you had them, it was your responsibility to make sure that they made the world a better place, that they would contribute something positive, and didn’t end up in someone’s prison.

Secrets of Love and Being a Good Son

“Be with someone who loves you more.” This again is something not said directly to me. My mother shared this piece of advice that my maternal grandmother shared with her – something I don’t think my uncles were taught. At the time I was in my early 30s, and entangled in a very, very toxic romantic relationship that I couldn’t break free from. I loved this particular woman more than she loved me which created a very bad imbalance.

“Be a good son, Anwar.” My grandmother told me this towards the end of her life. At that point she had developed some health ailments, and had become dependent upon the care of her own children. I think that she was encouraging me at that time to be an attentive and caring son if and when my own parents needed me later in life. Now in my early 40s it’s clear to me that not every child cares for their parents in their last stages, even though it’s something they may have been taught to do.

Again I feel as though I was one of the lucky grandchildren to have her there for the majority of my childhood. Both my brother and I are the only two of her grandchildren who can actually say that. She was there until I went away to college, before moving to Georgia for the remainder of her life. That’s the last place that I saw her. That was March of 2008.

My Father’s Mother

In terms of my paternal grandmother, I’ll start by saying that there are often other causalities in divorces besides the married couple and their children. Sometimes it’s other relatives who don’t get to see the children of those divorces as often. It’s something that affects all parties involved for years to come. There are many instances where children of broken relationships have little contact with the other sides of their family – this is just one. I think ours was just circumstance.

It can be really sad to think about the lack of time spent with some relatives, but it is important to remember that sometimes circumstances dictate a person’s life, and children have no control over that.

I didn’t know my father’s mother that well before she passed away in August of 1999. We lived in Buffalo and she lived seven hours away in New York City. We were younger at the time and didn’t travel independently – especially not to places like New York City – a dangerous and overwhelming place if you asked my mother. I thus only saw my paternal grandmother on the one or two visits to see my father – not a significant amount of time.

Summer Visits to New York City

That said as a child, I fondly recall going down to upper Manhattan where she lived and staying in her two-bedroom apartment in one of those orange-brick ‘Public Housing’ buildings you see in many of New York City’s five boroughs – one in a set of three or four, with a shared playground, park benches and basketball courts on the ground level. The elevators had that smell of urine and were ‘tagged’ with markers and spray paint. It was the coolest things for me to see at that time as it was so different than what I knew back in Buffalo. Her apartment overlooked the elevated train tracks leading to and from Grand Central Station – a perfect bird’s eye view. A lover of trains back then, I would spend lots of time in her windows watching the “Metro-North” commuter trains going back and forth, and hoping to spot the “Amtrak” trains which ran less frequently.

She cooked for us when we came, and boy could she cook. We ate like kings. She spoiled us with big breakfasts, and large dinners – usually involving something fried like chicken or salmon croquets. There was also my grandfather’s ‘Shrimp Gumbo’ recipe which my father says he has laying around in a box somewhere. The hallmark of the breakfasts were the waffles, beef bacon and cheese eggs. Then there were the banana cakes on our birthdays. There was one particular visit where I ate so much that my mother said that she could visibly see how much weight I had gained when we got off the train back in Buffalo towards the end of one summer.

Rare Occurrences

“Puff Daddy was performing at a gym with Heavy D and there was a shooting,” my paternal grandmother said on one of visits as young teens. We were up at my father’s house and she had seen a news broadcast from New York City. We were preparing to eat one of her wonderful meals. It was the early 1990s and we knew who Heavy D was because he had been out for a while and had numerous hits and music videos. I had never heard of this Puff Daddy before, and wondered what she was talking about. His music just hadn’t made it up to Western New York yet, so we didn’t know anything about him. Three to four years later, Puff Daddy created one of the hottest rap labels of all time; Bad Boy Records. It’s funny when I think about it.

Those were rare occurrences though – specks in the entirety of my life. Similar to my father, because our time was limited, all of the times were fun times at that stage – meant to make up for the lost time and packing in as many good experiences possible. I’m thankful for them, but I can look back as an adult and realize what they were. I also realize the ‘why’ now – something you don’t know as a child on a deeper level.

Circumstance, Time Lost and Regrets

I didn’t get to know my paternal grandmother on a deeper level the way that I got to know my maternal grandmother – there were no substantial passages of knowledge and wisdom. Well actually, there is one which I’ll keep to myself. I can tell you a lot about her though. She was very gregarious, and always laughing – she was very bubbly and always smiling for one reason or the other. She really enjoyed playing the lottery which is probably where my father got it from. They would play the ‘lot-to’ and attentively watch the numbers on the news every night hoping to win something. Based upon stories from my father, she was also a very superstitious woman – she didn’t believe in picking up pennies on the street, or splitting poles and people when walking down the street. Those are just the two that I know about.

One of my biggest regrets is not doing enough for her, like getting her gifts around the holidays. On my mother’s side of the family birthdays and holidays were sacred and not getting gifts was literally playing with your life. There were times when my mother had to remind me of those expectations until I got to the point of knowing what to do on my own. Gifts weren’t as important to Dad, and thus the importance of getting them for his mother wasn’t engrained in me. There was one instance as an early teen when I realized that I should have gotten her something for Christmas. It wasn’t something she said or reprimanded me over, but instead I realized in her nonverbal body language – her disappointment – something I’ll never forget.

Closing Thoughts

I’ll end this with a few closing points. My maternal grandmother was a great cook as well. She made a lot of things. Her macaroni and cheese recipe was popular when I’ve made it for some coworkers. She lives on through it among other things. For many years, I needed reminders from my own mother about Grandma’s November 8th birthday. I remembered after a while. My father was an only child and thus my brother and myself were his mother’s only grandchildren. I didn’t understand it growing up, but having ‘Grands’ is actually a really big deal. I guess that explains why she spoiled us so much when she saw us. Oh, and I’ve finally gotten my hands on her Shrimp Gumbo recipe and will be experimenting with it soon.

I’m going to wrap this up by saying that as I grew into adulthood, I watched both of my grandmothers’ declines, and I still remember the last time I saw both. They passed away almost ten years apart. To whoever reads this, man or woman, I encourage you to take care of your health as much as possible as you get older, as we all inevitably will. To the younger folks, cherish your elders as much as you can while they’re still here. Get as much wisdom as you can while they’re still around, as you never know if and how it will help you as you progress through your own years, and the challenges in them. Lastly, do as much for them as you can while you still have them.

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Father’s Day 2017: Reflections on some of Dad’s money and life lessons

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“You just did something I don’t like. You didn’t count your change. How do you know that the cashier gave you the correct change?”

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A Quick Plug

Father’s Day 2017

Last month I wrote a piece in celebration of Mother’s Day, so it’s only fitting that I write something in celebration of Father’s Day as well. The Mother’s Day post was about a specific piece of advice my mother gave me about my engagement and looming marriage a couple of years ago. As jokingly stated in that post, Dad didn’t give me much advice in that particular instance. He did give me lots of guidance throughout my life though. Over on my “Heroes and Quotes” page, his is the first quote which was some advice he gave me at a young age about how to succeed academically.

There was much more though, particularly in way of advice about money, women and other things – lots about money and women. He sometimes consciously taught me things, and some things I learned simply from observation. With two of the key principles of my blog being “Creating Ecosystems of Success”, and “Empowering Others”, I’m going to reflect on some of his money lessons and some of their deeper and associated life meanings/significances – some of which I had to question. As in most cases, I didn’t understand everything that was being said then as I do now.

Being Present and Visible

As I go through some of this stuff, keep in mind that fathers are important – biological, step-, or mentors of all sorts. According to data from Kid’s Count in 2015, 66% of African American kids were raised by a single-parent while the national average was 35%. My parents divorced when I was three-years old and I thus grew up in a single-parent household for the majority of my childhood. While I’ve sometimes looked back and wondered what it would’ve been like to have my father in the house, the blessing was that while he wasn’t physically there, it was important for him to be as visible and accessible as possible.

“Always make sure your children know who you are.” He tried hard to keep up with the words of his own father who died during his teens. It sounds like a simple thing, but as I grew into adulthood myself, went through college and even started dating, I realized that not every father did this, especially in the black community. The results often times were catastrophic with long lasting ramifications, especially in dating or ‘pair-bonding’ – a separate topic all in itself.

Counting Your Change

“You just did something I don’t like. You didn’t count your change. How do you know that the cashier gave you the correct change?” I was an early teen when this discussion took place. I had just paid for something, took the change the cashier gave me and immediately stuffed it into my pocket. A stern man, his words, “You just did something I don’t like,” stopped me dead in my tracks. I didn’t think he was paying attention, but sure enough he was – in general Dad was always paying attention to the most minute details even when you thought he wasn’t. He also remembered things long after you forgot them and would bring them back up when you least expected it.

When I discovered what he was unhappy about, it made sense to me and I started counting my change. I even started calculating in my mind the change I was supposed to get back from cashiers before they gave it to me. The lesson here was to be careful with my money, and to trust no one. Years later he observed that I was in fact careful with my money. I told him that I had gotten the behavior from him. He replied saying something very profound, “Well son, when you have to make child support payments, you have to be very careful with your money.”

Keeping Your Receipts

“You always keep your receipt because you never know when you’re going to have to return something.” I don’t know which came first, this lesson or the change counting lesson, but they weren’t far apart. His father had gotten on him about this when he was younger. He had allegedly gone into lower Manhattan to buy some underwear and returned home without the receipt resulting in his getting scolded.

“When you get paid, you want to account for all of your expenses.” This was an early lesson about budgeting. We didn’t sit down and do one right then and there, and I wouldn’t master it until at least ten years later, but I always remembered the discussion.

Paying Yourself First and Keeping Jobs

“You always pay yourself first.” This lesson came shortly after I started working, though again as a teen, I didn’t grasp the power of this advice until later. It had tremendous implications in one’s prime earning years where diligent individuals save for both emergencies and investments and build wealth while others spend all of their income.

“You don’t quit your job unless you have another one to go to.” Dad gave me this sage wisdom between my junior and senior years of high school after quitting my very first job at the Denny’s Restaurant, near the Buffalo airport. I lasted three months at that job which consisted of washing dishes, cleaning up the restaurant, and taking out the garbage. I didn’t last long enough to have to shovel snow in the winter. The place where I really wanted to work for my first job was McDonald’s. At the time it looked fun to me.

I was happy to have an income, but after a while I grew tired of working at Denny’s – coming home sweaty, greasy, and exhausted. Without talking to anyone, I quit that job right there on the spot with no other job to go to. It was then that I came to the understanding that I had no more cash flow – a sign of immaturity. The only positive thing about that situation was that I was still in high school and wasn’t required to contribute to any of my mother’s household bills. Some adults quit their job without having a replacement and put themselves in a pickle; often burdening those around them.

Saving Money

“You always keep money in the bank because you never know when an emergency is going to arise.” There’s a very funny story behind this lesson and it involves a woman – something very dramatic and stressful according to Dad. For my own safety, I’ll just stick to the lesson. At an early age, Dad stressed the importance of having money in the bank due to unforeseen emergencies which inevitably happen to you, or to someone around you. In this particular quagmire he had gotten into, having some money in the bank helped him get out of it. He also regretted once not having $5,000 available for a mortgage down payment on a house he was renting.

Harsh Lessons on Affording Things

“You can keep dating her if you want to. You might have to miss your electric bill.” This sobering advice came during my first year in graduate school in my mid-twenties. It was one of my first experiences learning something that Dad had talked about for most of my childhood – women and money. At least most of the ones we knew came with a price tag, and wanted to be wined and dined.

I had, unfortunately, taken a liking to someone whom I dated for one to two months who openly admitted she was needy, which I didn’t understand at the time as she had already started her own career. Inexperienced at dating, she grew frustrated with my meager finances and my lack of understanding of what was expected of me. Dad’s advice here, which came in a hurtful and mocking tone, was simply communicating that I needed to determine whether or not I could afford this particular female. I decided that I couldn’t.

It’s an important set of questions for all men to ask themselves when meeting a potential partner. Can I afford her? Does she line up with my priorities? Will she tank my finances? This was also one of the first times I could personally feel the pain, the scars, and the poor fortune my father experienced in the dating jungle after he and my mother split – as there was lots of despair, and little hope or encouragement in his words.

Child Support Payments

“When you have to make child support payments, it forces you to be very careful with your money.” I have to be very careful here as this is a sensitive topic, and my mother generally proof-reads my articles. Throughout my childhood, Dad sometimes lamented about making child support payments – not because he didn’t want to support his children, but because I think he had a hard time making ends meet on his own end. During my childhood, he eventually took a second job in the military to pay the bills. It’s a sensitive topic because while he felt maxed out, my mother felt as though he wasn’t doing enough. And I’ll stop there, but suffice it to say that in many instances men and women see money (and life) differently. In some instances, as the ones being asked to provide, it can seem like your best is never enough – a hard pill to swallow. He and I talked about this a lot as I got older and I started experiencing my own scrapes and bruises with the opposite sex.

What is Real Money?

“The bank is going to want to look at all of your bank statements when you apply for a mortgage, and $2,000 isn’t any money,” Dad scoffed at me, making me feel five feet tall. I was still living with the big guy during my Postdoctoral fellowship. I had started reading Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad series and had joined my local Real Estate Investment Club. I wanted to make an ambitious move and get my first investment property – a duplex which I would live in and eventually rent out for “Passive” income. I needed some help with the closing costs and associated expenses, so I asked him for a loan. It was one of the worst experiences of my life.

Instead of a nice teachable discussion about the ups, the downs, and the ins, and outs of trying such a thing – it turned into him putting me in a proverbial headlock. It dragged on for days and days as he mulled over it, and asked me random pointed questions about it – his analysis and communication styles. After a while I just wanted to drop the whole thing, and I concluded that I never wanted to be in a position to ask his help for anything money-related, though I did once more, and returned to the same conclusion.

In hindsight while it was smart to want to create a passive income stream, it wasn’t a good idea in that particular instance. I wasn’t going to stay in that area long-term, and I wasn’t experienced enough, and didn’t have enough money to manage a property from a long-distance. What was funny was that many people don’t even have $2,000 in the bank they can access quickly. That said, he was right in that it wasn’t a substantial amount of money. He was also right in that prior to qualifying you for a mortgage, the banks do want to know everything about your financial history.

Dad was also jaded in terms of being a landlord from a prior experience, as he once had a tenant in his lower unit – an older woman. According to him, he went downstairs to collect the rent one day, and the woman transformed into a malevolent, ominous, and demon-possessed state. It scared him at the time and forever soured him on being a landlord.

Dad’s Risk Averseness

“I wouldn’t invest in the Stock Market if I were you.” This bit of advice was given to me in my 30s when I expressed that I wanted to buy some stock by the end of that particular year. Because of his own life experiences, Dad was averse to losing money. Coincidentally, one of our closest cousins recommended I get in the game and buy stock, and even today experts like Dr. Boyce Watkins, strongly advocate blacks getting into the Stock Market. So who was right in this case? Who was to be believed and trusted?

This gets back to one of the points I made in my 2017 Mother’s Day post. As we grow into adulthood, I think we all get to a point where everything our parents tell us can’t be taken as the gospel and in some instances must be questioned and or pondered critically. In this particular instance, yes investing in stocks does involve potential loss. An important consideration going in though is whether or not you understand that there is a potential for the loss, and whether or not you can absorb the loss. In other words, do you have emergency money in the bank, and is the amount to be invested allocated for that reason? Can it be easily replaced for another round? This is a much different thought process than simply stating, “You’re going to lose your money if you do that.”

Closing Thoughts

If the tone of this blog post was in part melancholy and mixed, then it reflects our father-son relationship which has been full of contradictions and mystery. When I look back at my youth many of my childhood experiences were marked by concerns over money. I’m not saying that I grew up in poverty because I didn’t by any means. I don’t really remember my mother, whom I spent the majority of my childhood with, talking about money a lot, but I think she shielded my brother and me from some things – sheltering us, as one of my aunts often said. I did look around at peers, such as my best friend and realized that I didn’t have Air Jordans, Starter Jackets, Karl Kani, or any of the trendiest apparel of our cohort.

Most of the money-related talks as I grew up actually came from my father and as you might have gathered from this post, many of them had some sort of pain associated with them. As I’ve gotten older, I understand things much better now. As we get older we start to see that our parents are people who make mistakes themselves, and are not perfect though at one point we may have thought they were. In some instances we start to understand their pains and struggles.

Over the years our father-son relationship has gone through a lot of changes – some good and some bad with multiple ups and downs. Overall I’m grateful for everything my father has done for me, and I tell him that every time I see him now (my mother too). That said, as I think President Obama said years ago, for children whose biological fathers are missing, there can be other fathers too. And even if a child’s father isn’t a good one, or can’t supply everything needed, there can again be other fathers to fill in those gaps. I certainly have many.

There are a lot of podcasts and men’s stations on places like YouTube these days – many talking about the importance of fathers. My favorite in this current station of my life is Paul Elam’s A Voice for Men – content I would recommend for any man still figuring things out in our society – personal values, dating and marriage, and finally gender/societal roles. Fathers are very important if for no other reason than to lend a balanced perspective on the world. This is true for both boys and girls who themselves will eventually both grow into men and women.

Thank you for taking the time out to read this blog post. If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy:

• Two well-behaved boys left to figure things out on their own: Reflections on growing up ‘Blue Pill’
• Mother’s Day 2018: Memories of my grandmothers
• Mother’s Day 2017: One of my mother’s greatest gifts, getting engaged, and avoiding my own personal fiscal cliff
• Challenging stereotypes and misconceptions in academic achievement
• The benefits and challenges of using articulate speech

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Mother’s Day 2017: One of My Mother’s Greatest Gifts, Getting Engaged, and Avoiding My Own Personal Fiscal Cliff

A Quick Plug

Motherly Guidance

A couple of years ago when still writing for the Examiner, I wrote a sentimental tribute piece about my mother for Mother’s Day discussing everything she did for my brother and me. In short she put being a mother first above all else. Looking back at my youth I don’t remember her really partying aside from holiday celebrations at her places of employment. There were always lots of home cooked meals, togetherness, and church on Sundays, though I didn’t appreciate it at the time. There was also a lot of love and positive affirmation in our home.

Her motherly guidance continued well into my adulthood. One of her greatest gifts was given to me a couple of years ago, and I can guarantee that it isn’t a gift that you the reader would expect. It was a lifesaving gift – one that impacted our immediate family, and that helped stop me from going over my own personal “Fiscal Cliff” and falling to my demise. I’m sharing this story because I think about it often, but also so that it might help save someone else. This post will probably likewise touch someone, and maybe draw a laugh or two, or three, or four.

Fiscal Cliffs

Many of you remember the term “Fiscal Cliff” from one of President Barrack Obama’s earliest showdowns with Republicans regarding the financial future of the United States – at the time a potential massive increase in taxes and broad spending cuts. There are also be personal fiscal cliffs – situations in which a particular set of financial factors causes or threatens sudden and severe economic decline. While the sizes and scales are different, they both involve needs, wants, how items in question are going to get paid for, and the after effects.

Only those really close to me know that I was engaged to be married two or three years ago. Not being one to post my personal business all over Facebook, I initially told only a trusted few. My former fiancée will remain anonymous, and my challenge likewise will be to tell this story in the fairest way possible, without demonizing and piling on her, as it would show very little class, so wish me luck. Instead, I will focus on something my mother shared with me, and how it stayed with me as my brief engagement unfolded. There were actually a couple of quotes that stuck with me but hers was special.

Ring Sizes and Customs

“You know it’s the custom for the bride’s father and/or family to pay for the wedding,” my mother told me shortly after my fiancée accepted my proposal (which I botched by not doing the getting on one knee ritual). I didn’t know the first thing about weddings and in the previous year had to learn quickly about the “Four Cs” for picking out engagement rings: Cut, Clarity, Carat size, and Color. Depending on the woman, rings can be a really, really big deal – perhaps too big a deal in the grand scheme of things. That’s a separate discussion.

Living in two different cities, there were a lot of details my fiancée and I had to work out besides the wedding itself. We loosely mutually agreed that the ceremony should be held out in the city she was from on the Pacific coast. I think it was around that time a ballpark number for how much we would spend on the wedding emerged; $18,000 which quickly got rounded up to $20,000. The funny thing is I think I threw the number out there – not because I had dreamt of spending that amount, but because I had heard two friends say that they had spent that amount on their wedding with some help from their folks I believe.

How to Get Married

After she accepted the proposal, things went fast. Within a week, a close friend sent her a “How to Get Married” book with all of the planning and steps. There were also plans to go dress shopping in New York City just like the show Say Yes to the Dress. There is a lot I could say about what all happened next, but for the sake of keeping this focused, I’ll just say that there was a lot of deliberation over the amount to be spent. While I wanted to keep it at $20,000 or below, my fiancée lobbied to push the number upwards.

“You’re probably going to end up spending a little bit over what you set the budget at,” my mother said, which didn’t make me feel any better.

“How many people are you all inviting? The dollar amount is going to grow exponentially with the number of guests you’re inviting because you’re going to be feeding all of those people,” a close friend and fellow University of Michigan alumnus said, who had gotten married while we were all still in school. He and his wife spent a little over $10,000 of their graduate school stipends – a tremendous feat.

It’s the custom for the bride’s father or family to pay for the wedding, my mother’s words continued to roll around in my head. But whose custom was this? And what if the bride’s father or family didn’t have any money? Then what?

Eventually I started to ponder the enormity of spending $20,000 on our big day. I started thinking that it wasn’t a smart idea even though I was a federal employee with a, “good government job.” I had only recently gotten rid of my revolving consumer debt and didn’t have a substantial emergency fund in the bank, and neither did she. I had also only recently started getting the 5% matching contribution on my government Thrift Savings Plan retirement account. Furthermore, I had my eyes on buying stock, and moving into the wealthy class.

What Can One Do with $20,000?

It’s the custom for the bride’s father or family to pay for the wedding. What can one do with $20,000? One can use it as a down payment on a home (depending on the market). One can purchase a brand new car. One can invest that money and grow it. One can donate to charities and scholarship funds for needy kids. It can also simply be put away for an emergency fund for life’s inevitable calamities. It can be used to start a business of some sort. In this case it could also be spent on a one-day bonanza for friends and family who would go back to their lives afterwards.

“What you all need to do is live off of one of your incomes for a year and save the other one,” one of my mentors said when I told him that I was thinking about making the big plunge months earlier. He was an experienced entrepreneur several years my senior and had seen a lot in his life’s journey. “You all need to save $50,000 in the bank – actually black people need to have $100,000 in the bank,” he continued. “Whenever we’re jobless it takes us longer to get hired.”

We need to save $50,000 in the bank? We need to save $100,000 in the bank? In addition to my mother’s words about the bride’s family paying for the wedding, my mentor’s words also bounced around in my head. Was such a thing even possible? With proper planning and prioritization, something that experts in estate planning like Dean Godfrey can help with, and agreeing in a relationship context, absolutely it was possible. While I could see the power in doing such a thing however, I wondered how realistic it was for the particular set of circumstances I was in. My fiancée and I didn’t reside on the same planet money-wise, and in several other key ways, which gets to the being ‘equally yoked’ principal that’s often discussed when long-term relationships come up. This living off of one income for the first year advice actually wasn’t new. It was just my first time hearing it.

Michelle Singletary’s Revelation

I found out something else highly relevant to this discussion by chance in the Washington Post. It was shared by Michelle Singletary to whom I have to give the credit for citing it in her “Color of Money” column. In an article discussing finance-related topics couples should discuss before getting serious (credit scores/history for example), she cited a study by Emory Professors Andrew Francis and Hugo Mialon titled A Diamond is Forever’ and Other Fairy Tales: The Relationship between Wedding Expenses and Marriage Duration. They found that couples who spent greater than $20,000 on a wedding and associated costs are 3.5 times more likely to get divorced than couples who spent $5,000 and $10,000. CNN and PBS covered this as well.

“You know Anwar, $20,000 is actually the low end for the amount spent on a wedding,” another close friend and Michigan alumnus said in the aftermath of the whole thing. That may have been true, but the question in my mind once again centered around whose role it was to pay for all of it. Was it the couple or the bride’s family? Both families? And what were the long-term consequences? Furthermore, was it sane for a couple with no inheritances, and collectively no assets, to invest that type of money in something like that?

My gut told me no, but there is something sentimental, warm and fuzzy when it comes to women, engagements, weddings and shows like Say Yes to the Dress – something that defies all logic and reason. As a man, you can easily get swept up in it all because well – it’s what many women like and what many women want to do. Many have dreamt about their ‘Big Day’ since they were little.

Retrieving Investments?

As alluded to earlier, it wasn’t exactly a stable partnership and life’s many circumstances caused the whole thing to implode. It was actually biblical in magnitude – something made for TV. I thus didn’t have to proceed down the path that was unfolding in front of me which I saw leading me over the edge of my own personal fiscal cliff onto the rocks below. No, I never got the ring back. I got that question a lot – mostly from females I shared the story with, and from one guy – a cunning salesman who was trying to get me to purchase one of his insurance products in a coffee shop one morning. I gladly told everyone no, as it paled in comparison to the money that I would’ve spent had the whole thing gone forward.

A Pakistani Wedding

About a year after my engagement imploded, a close friend got married – a Pakistani woman. I was blessed to be invited to one of the three days of their weekend long wedding celebration/ceremony. That’s right, it was three days in accordance with Pakistani culture – they do it big. The ceremony I attended was at a beautiful hall and had all the trimmings. My coworker and her husband, who was also Pakistani, were both dressed in the most immaculate costumes in accordance with their culture. He actually rode in on a pony. I looked around in amazement as all of us guests were treated like royalty.

She shared with me that her parents and the groom’s parents paid in the ballpark of $30,000 for the whole thing – that’s right $30,000. Coming from the eastside of Buffalo, that’s a lot of money, and afterwards I pondered over and over again that their parents paid for it. It was their culture and the norm in their community. They also had an abundance of stable families where their parents actually had the funds to put into that type of thing – perhaps a demonstration of Pakistani privilege.

I continued to ponder their wedding weekend. Because their parents footed the bill, they as a young couple didn’t take a huge financial hit. They were able to just continue on with their lives and build – saving into their retirement accounts, planning vacations, pondering purchasing a home, etc. They were able to start in a good place. The same was true for another friend. She and her spouse came from two stable families and themselves didn’t personally make huge investments on their big day. The bride’s diamond ring was not purchased at some extravagant store like on TV, but instead, it was passed down through the generations in the groom’s family – again a benefit of coming from a stable family. Up this point, I’ve mentioned the concept of retirement twice. To get a feel for why this is so important, I recommend reading 6 last-minute retirement planning strategies by Brian Perry.

A Big Waste of Money?

“Weddings are a big waste of money,” said a professor on my thesis committee at the University of Michigan with a look of disgust on his face. He was kind of conservative, and had homes in both Ann Arbor and Jackson Hole, Wyo. He had been around a while and had seen a lot of stuff. I didn’t understand any of it at the time so I thought he might’ve just been being an old curmudgeon. He was probably thinking that there were better things that could be done with the tens of thousands of dollars spent on weddings.

Are weddings, engagement rings, and all of the associated costs a waste of money? As with most things it depends on your point of view. That said, as a couple, before dumping tens of thousands of dollars into something like that, I think it’s important that both agree on it and ask each other several key questions. Are you going into debt for it? Have you already started building wealth individually? Can your relatives afford to kick in? Where will you two be after the festivities once everyone else has gone home? Is spending an astronomical amount of money a need or a want?

“It’s the custom for the bride’s father and or family to pay for the wedding.” I don’t know that my mother knew that her words would stay in my mind as they did. The words made more and more sense to me as I thought about them. From a logical standpoint, if I as a man have just saved for an engagement ring – a month’s salary or more, does it now make sense to dump more money into a one-day extravaganza leaving us financially exposed? For me at the time, no, it didn’t make any sense. By the way, this wasn’t the only advice my mother gave me. As a spiritual woman, there was much more. My father? He didn’t give me much of anything advice-wise. His greatest anxiety/concern was having to fly out to the west coast to attend the ceremony.

Personal Decisions

Everyone has to decide for themselves what’s right as families and cultures are different. As mentioned earlier, after a life of making financial mistakes out of ignorance, and only recently discovering some of the key secrets to wealth building such as knowing what a Net Worth was, my focus was more on savings and investments. Furthermore, having been bailed out of a couple of jams by one of my uncles for example, asking him for more money at that time felt unacceptable. The same was true for my father of whom I also decided it was unacceptable to ask for financial support of any kind at my current station in life.

For any men reading this and thinking about taking the plunge, this stuff is a big deal. Many of the ladies (not all) dream about their wedding and will even critique and mock each other over them, as I witnessed a couple of high income-professional ladies do about a peer who paid for her wedding expenses out of pocket. To cut costs, she and her fiancé wisely did things like cater their reception. He was a master chef and put in some sweat equity of his own on the food. I think they spent ~ $10,000 on the wedding, maybe a little less. Also, some ladies think a spectacular ring is owed them, and will make them feel better during those inevitable rough marital patches. Some will concede the wedding for a $20,000 or ring.

Think about your life, your goals and the long-term ramifications if you’re paying out of pocket. Be real with yourself and your partner. Determine whether or not you’re dealing in needs or wants and where you’ll be on the back end of the wedding. If the two of you can’t agree there then that should, ‘give you pause,’ as my mother would say. Interestingly my father’s second wife felt that past a certain age, there shouldn’t be any expectations for families to help pay for anything, and that’s assuming again that you had parents and families who had the means to begin with.

A $10,000 Gift for Eloping

“My friend’s father told her that he would give her a $10,000 gift if she and her fiancé eloped,” a woman in my former lab said at a recent science conference. Her friend’s father had clearly done the math in his head and projected what a wedding would cost him, and determined that $10,000 would be a fraction of that cost.

Closing Thoughts

While the majority of this story was about me I’m going to close out by going back to my mother as this post is in celebration of Mother’s Day. It was her words that stayed with me throughout this whole experience. That being said, one of the challenges to growing up is having the discernment to reconcile your parent’s experiences/beliefs and words of wisdom with your own situation as the two don’t always go together. Sometimes you do inevitably deviate from what they recommend for any number of reasons – sometimes disappointing them and even going through the hardship they tried to protect you from, and sometimes not.

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