It wasn’t my intention to write today.  As Thanksgiving approaches and as part of simplifying life, I have deleted most of the apps on my phone, the bookmarks in my browser and have made the conscious choice not to check the news or social media for… a while.  Like eating better and not drinking, this will no doubt ebb with time but for me (personal accountability), neither the news cycle, the media mania, nor the echo chamber that is Twitter is healthy.  Especially Twitter.  280 characters (with no edit feature) is truly a ridiculous too..  I will give LinkedIn credit in that 1300 characters at least provides for more nuance, but nothing beats a conversation (and, if you are still mad at the tweet, you can email me any time you wish at drw@hottakeoftheday.com and we can set up a phone call to discuss how it made you feel). But, overall, I have come to the belief that in aggregate, social media is the exact opposite of healthy.  It, more than anything, in concert with the main stream media “24 hour news cycle” has brought our country to where we are today.  I don’t like where our country is at.  I certainly don’t like where the country’s monetary policy is at.  And I deeply fear for our children.  Which is why the third sentence of yesterday’s post was in the tweet.

Kids.  At the end of the day, my kids are the most important thing to me, and every day I fear for their future.  Debt, GDP, discrimination, the economy, the rising cost of houses and schools.  All of it.  It’s a scary and complex world, and, should the debt of our nation ever come due, it is our kids that will suffer.  So when I say “your kids need a 3.6” I was not speaking of GPA.  I am speaking of their choices that will impact their future. They are not destined for failure if they have the tools to succeed.  You have given them those tools too… but until they can’ accept personal accountability, it is their failures we try to prevent with much more energy.

Maybe school isn’t their thing- but they need to be a “3.6” at something, because life is a competition, and they are competing for their own future.  There are 250 million young people in Asia competing very, very hard to beat our kids, and it’s time we recognize that in a world of limited resources, winning them is a battle.  Our jobs as parents is to direct them to the place in their life they can be most successful, and if they can’t be a pro athlete, they shouldn’t be pushed to be a pro athlete (not everyone is Lebron).  If they can’t be a doctor, they shouldn’t be pushed into 10 years of school and $500,000 of debt to become the next Dr. Fauci (I kid, I kid).

But as parents, we know more than they do.  We know that there are no do-overs.  We know that the decisions they make when they are 12, 14, 16 and 20 will stay with them for the rest of their lives.  And while I talk about personal accountability, sometimes kids don’t know better.  We do.  Be it a gap year, getting a job, or teaching them character, joy and charity…. our goal as parents is to enable our kids to be better than us.  No more and no less.

GPA doesn’t matter, except when it does, and some times, when it shouldn’t, even when it should. Happy Thanksgiving.  The best from me to you.