We Did It All Wrong, Yet Amazingly, We Pulled It Off

Sat., Oct. 28, 2000

Walt Jackson Special To Staff writer

My wife and I did everything wrong.

First, we had 10 kids, none of them planned. The first three were born in September, October and November of three consecutive years. How dumb can you get?

Then, while they were still practically babies, we started dragging them all over the world. We had two more kids in Cyprus and our sixth in Bolivia. While we were still in Bolivia, my wife’s mother died, so we took in two of my wife’s sisters to finish raising.

Three more kids were born in Florida, where my father joined us, staying until he died. Youngster 10 was born in Virginia, where we picked up my wife’s youngest sister for some time, as well as my wife’s father. He, too, lived with us until he died.

What suckers we were. What are nursing homes and child care for, anyway?

We were abusive as well. Two or more of the oldest kids ran newspaper motor routes with me, starting about 3 or 4 a.m.

In Florida, even Grandpa Jackson rode along in the van, folding papers while I drove.

My wife was always overburdened and deprived of the opportunity for self-fulfillment. No chance to pursue an education or career beyond the home. She was never able to take a job and contribute to the family income or have financial independence. At least, not until the kids were mostly grown and she got to go out and drive a school bus. Big whoop-de-doo!

Discipline came from the top down until it became self-discipline. If we were raising our kids today, this “enlightened” society would throw us in jail for whopping them on the butt when we thought it was deserved. We would probably be fined, put on probation and have to go for child care training.

I’ll never understand how we wound up with four children in the helping professions, plus a sailor, a building contractor, a teacher, a regional planner, a lawyer and a doctor of chemical engineering. No dropouts, no jailbirds and none unemployed. I just don’t know how it all happened in spite of the awful job we did of child rearing.Just luck, I guess.

It sure would have been nice to do a “good” job of raising our kids - the way enlightened people do it today.

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