There's A Whole World Waiting

Every morning I drive my daughter to her school and I get out and walk her to the cafeteria. I see those little boys and girls with their bright and innocent eyes and I think to myself those kids could be anything they wanted to be if they get the opportunity and someone to believe in them. Everything great is potentially ahead of them. Then I remember being a little kid at McDonald #19 Elementary School and how none of us had any idea what life had in store. I think about how many of the kids I grew up with were being raised with the fact that no one really expected much out of them and they behaved that way. I remember my daddy always dancing around like a crazy man and singing “You are the trailblazer! You are Number 1!!” He used to give me that cheer when I was sitting at the table doing my homework and didn’t feel like doing it. I remember thinking to myself "Why is this big man dancing because I don't want to look up my vocabulary words? Isn't he supposed to be grabbing me by my shirt?" He made me take my name and responsibility to it seriously even as a kid. I think about how that shaped my work ethic to this day.

Believing that your kids are wonderful and gifted may not make them a millionaire but it might keep them out of the penitentiary and help them live a long full life. We have to tell them that they are somebody so they will expect more of themselves and not embrace being less than what they should be. That's just my opinion. If one of my babies tell me they want to fly a spaceship I will help them pick out the planet they are flying to first.

I would like to dedicate Donny Hathaway to the babies.