RotaryDad

Actually, St. Valentine’s Day means a lot to me and my family, although maybe not for the reason you suspect. Sure, flowers and candy are nice … but for me, Valentine’s Day is how my children discovered their love for Rotary. Seriously.

My older daughter became committed to Rotary soon after she was my “Valentine’s Sweetheart” six or seven years ago. My Rotary Club hosts an annual “Sweetheart Day” at one of our regular meetings each February. Spouses, partners, and significant others are invited. A few years ago, I brought my daughter instead. It made such an impression on her that it became an annual tradition for us. She began expecting to attend each February, and eventually became a regular weekly guest. The rest, as they say … is history!

Since my nine-year-old now goes to school, her younger sister has carried on the Valentine’s tradition. And she’s added a twist that might just make it her own. At today’s meeting, she constructed hand-made Valentine Cards for everyone. They were simple, really … a pink heart-shaped sticky note with a festive sticker attached next to the occasional marker-scribbled heart.

The hearts were a big hit, as one member after another received theirs and stuck it over the front of their Rotary badges. My friends made her simple gift even better by wearing the hearts, and the scene was really touching.

She was quite proud of her work, and so was I …

I bill myself as a “Professional Father” for the purposes of my official Rotary classification, and my badge makes for a pretty good conversation starter every once in a while.

A few days ago, I was invited to participate in th DIYFather.com website, based in New Zealand. While I haven’t found the right topic just yet, I did run across a thoughtful post from Minnesota’s Marc Brandenburg:

Someone asked famous British playwright Oscar Wilde what the difference was between a professional and amateur author. He answered, “Professional authors write even when they don’t feel like it.”

Sounds right to me!

No, I’m not going. At least not anytime soon. That I know of.

But my Preschooler is ready! At today’s weekly luncheon, one of the announcements was about some spaces remaining in my District’s GSE team headed to Taiwan later this year.

I never really know if she is paying attention during the meeting, but now I have proof that she is. A few seconds after the announcement was made, she leaned over and whispered in my ear: “Can we do go there, Daddy?”

She has no idea where Taiwan is, but she wanted to go. I know she likes Rotary, and I bet she views it as something I do for fun. I can only assume that she’s looking to share an experience similar to what I had in Turkey … someday …

I haven’t had a chance top set-up the Rotary International RSS News Feed here on RotaryDad, but it’s coming soon.

But before I could actually get around to it, the RI feed picked up a story from Hiram, Ohio, about the World Peace Parents program started by the Rotary Club of Garretsville-Hiram (District 6630).

After 75 years, the Rotary Club of Garrettsville-Hiram faced a declining membership and dwindling enthusiasm. But by celebrating family, the club’s 10 members not only strengthened their club, they also helped their community.

The Empower the Family service project, now in its fifth year, supports activities that engage and honor families while enhancing Rotary’s image. …

Convinced of the project’s global appeal to families and Rotarians alike, Vibert Kesler, chair of the first Family Week Celebration and a former member of the Garrettsville-Hiram club, created World Peace Parents in 2003. This nonprofit organization helps Rotary clubs worldwide carry out similar events in their communities. To date, clubs in Minnesota and Pennsylvania, USA, have organized family celebrations. And the Rotary clubs of Bombay Bandra, Maharashtra, India, and Muyenga and Port-Bell, Uganda, are working with World Peace Parents to adapt the concept to their cultures.

It’s great to see a club resurrect itself through what I call “Family Service,” although this is also an awesome community service project too.

It’s entirely possible that your average Rotarian might come in contact with a few more children during the holidays than other times of the year … what with special holiday gift giving, community events, school vacations, etc …

May I humbly remind you that those little kids can hear everything you say. Everything. And they’ll repeat it back to their parents three hours later.

Important Safety Tip for the Holidays: Santa is real. The unequivocal truth about Kris Kringle’s existence transcends the Rotary Four-Way Test. Don’t blow it.

At this week’s Rotary Luncheon, a good friend of mine started an innocent table discussion about the Santa Phenomenon, and the veracity of various parental claims. He started with a personal example: “My daughter knows there’s no Santa, but we … ” Wherein he was quickly and sternly rebutted by me, with a sideways glance at the perky little three-year-old ears sitting next to me.

I don’t think she heard anything, but I’m gathering some coal just in case I need to make an extra night time delivery in a few weeks.

There comes a time in every modern parent’s life when their child says something, and it dashes your hopes for the future.

Maybe I’m being too dramatic, but my Preschooler told me on Friday that “girls aren’t firefighters.” She didn’t actually say “girl’s can’t be firefighters,” so maybe there’s still hope.

This had come up because her older sister’s Girl Scout Troop was scheduled to visit our local firehouse, and there was an actual female firefighter expected to lead the tour. As I was preparing my Three-Year-Old for her official role as invited sibling, I was confronted with societal stereotypes and their impact on our children. This despite the fact that she plays “firefighter” almost daily at her preschool. I also thought she was doing a good job sorting through stupid gender-based roles, especially since the famous “Police Chief Daddy” discussion.

So from my perspective, the visit to the fire station came at just the right time for my daughter, and I hope other parents get to be so lucky. Ever since the visit, we’ve been talking about firefighters and I’ve been encouraging her to tell her friends who she met at the station.

And my eyes are open even wider for gender-based assumptions that need to be dealt with or dismissed before my daughter places another limitation on her future.

And in case you were wondering, our President returned wearing a button-down beige shirt and khaki pants. Apparently, he’d been tipped off by another Rotarian. Too bad; it would have been fun to see if she was right.

Wow, today really sucked. But it had such potential.

I am this week’s “speaker finder” (our club rotates responsibility for the program topics amongst all of our members), my Nine-Year-Old’s school schedule allowed her to attend today, and I had a line on a speaker to talk about RYLA.

In 20-20 hindsight, it was a disaster. My speaker never returned my calls, I changed topics at the last minute (presenting my further adventures in Turkey), I couldn’t find a slide projector, and the kitchen ran out of food.

On the bright side, my kids enjoyed the meeting, and the topic wasn’t a total bust. But I’ll have to plan my life better next time.

I encourage everyone to spend a week with a Three-Year-Old sometime. Their unique perspective on the world is very entertaining — if not downright educational.

I substituted for our Club President at today’s meeting, running the show from the podium. Since my daughter has returned to her weekly Rotary schedule, things have been running very smoothly. I had absolutely no qualms about leading the meeting with her sitting next to me at the newly-restored head table. Just in case, I prepared a few extra distractions for her, and made sure she understood why today’s routine would be a little different.

I told her I’d be running the meeting. She knows what’s that like, because she remembers the presentation I made to the club about my trip to Turkey.

When she asked me why I’d be up front, I told her our President was traveling, and she asked me if he was taking his blue shirt with him. The question surprised me, so I had to figure out what she was thinking.

Apparently, our President always wears a blue button-down business shirt on Tuesdays (perhaps more often, of course). It’s made such an impact on her that the shirt might be her primary expectation about what it means to be a Rotary President.

So, I mentioned it to the club while I was apologizing for my leadership in his absence. I wonder what color he’ll wear next week …

School’s begun, and with it our new routine. … At least our new routine for the moment.

Now that she can sit still without tossing any apple sauce, my youngest daughter is probably ready for a full-time schedule of Rotary luncheons. She has her own badge, so we’ll give it a whirl and see what happens. She attends morning preschool three times a week now (MWF), meaning the likelihood of wearing residual glitter to our Tuesday meeting is reduced.

Although I didn’t take her to the presentation on RotaPlast. Cleft pallets are hard enough to explain to an adult.

My third-grader’s life life continues to get in the way of Rotary, but I’m sure she’ll sneak in a meeting or two whenever she can.