Helping Families Flourish

A Notable March Birthday

May 3, 2012 by Helping Families Flourish, posted in Flourishing Article

Originally published in Flourishing March 2012.

The American economist James Tobin was born on March 5, 1918. He received the 1981 Nobel Prize “for his analysis of financial markets and their relations to expenditure decisions, employment, production, and prices.”

Tobin argued that one can’t predict the effect of monetary policy on output and unemployment simply by knowing the interest rate or the rate of growth of the money supply. Monetary policy has its effect, he claimed, by affecting capital investment, whether in plant and equipment or in consumer durables. And, although interest rates are an important factor in capital investment, they are not the only factor.

Tobin introduced the concept of “Tobin’s q” as a measure to predict whether capital investment will increase or decrease. The q is the ratio between the market value of an asset and its replacement cost. For example, if an asset’s q is less than one—that is, the asset’s value is less than its replacement cost—then new investment in similar assets is not profitable.

Tobin’s insight was also relevant to his ongoing debate with Milton Friedman (Nobel Prize 1976) and other monetarists. Tobin argued that his q, by predicting future capital investment, would be a good predictor of economic conditions.

Tobin’s portfolio-selection theory is another of his contributions. He argued that investors balance high-risk, high-return investments with safer ones so as to achieve a balance in their portfolios. Tobin’s insights helped pave the way for further work in finance theory.

James Tobin died on March 11, 2002. mh

The Essential Heroes: the One Percent

May 1, 2012 by Helping Families Flourish, posted in Flourishing Article

Originally published in Flourishing March 2012

Thirty-odd years ago, I was working for W. J. Powell Construction Company in Beloit,Kansas. “Dub” was a wonderful person and a fair employer. The job wasn’t all that challenging, though, so I would take a book to work, and often used my lunch break to read biographies. That’s when it started—that little fire in the belly that says, “You can do more.”

One of the books that I read during that period was Study in Power: John D. Rockefeller, Industrialist, Philanthropist, by Allan Nevins.

Born in 1839, John D. Rockefeller rose from the lowest rungs of society to become one of the world’s wealthiest men and greatest philanthropists. His father was a ne’er-do-well elixir salesman and bigamist, who frequently abandoned his family for months and years at a time. Notwithstanding, John D. was serious, studious, hard-working, frugal, and well-behaved; and before he was forty, he was a member of the One Percent.

I mention John D. here, because I want to introduce you to a more recent member of the One Percent—a man from similarly humble beginnings. The two men have more in common than great wealth.

Born in rural Oklahoma in 1945, Harold Hamm was the youngest of thirteen children. His father was a share-cropper, who raised his family in a one room shack, devoid of indoor plumbing. Harold left home before graduating from high school, and took a job as a pump-jockey (a term of endearment, if you please) at an Enid, Oklahoma gas station.

Fast forward fifty years: Last November, Harold Hamm was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, along with Tommy Franks of Wynnewood; Marques Haynes of Sand Springs; Cathy Keating and Steve Malcolm of Tulsa; Elizabeth Warren of Oklahoma City; and (posthumously) Roger Miller of Erick. He still likes burgers from Sonic Drive-In, but Harold is now #36 on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans. His net worth is $9.0 billion, give or take; virtually all of which is still invested in finding and producing oil and natural gas.

Ever grateful for his success, Harold’s many generous gifts include a recent $30 million donation for the Harold Hamm Diabetes Center on the University of Oklahoma campus. “If it hadn’t been for education, I would have never had a chance to break away from the poverty cycle my family and I were caught up in ever since the Depression years.” (After his initial success, Harold went back to school; and he has never stopped learning.)

Of his induction into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, Harold said, “It’s a great honor, and it’s not anything I ever thought I would receive … it’s really beyond my dreams. …For this honor to come about right now while I still have some siblings alive, and for them to share this with me, means everything.”

That says a lot about the kind of man Harold Hamm is. He started in business with a $1,000 loan, co-signed by a friend. In 1967, at the age of twenty-two, he incorporated his business—a one-man, one-truck oilfield services company—as Shelly Dean Oil Co., named for his two oldest daughters. His wife kept the books, and as the little company grew, Harold and Sue Ann’s daughters answered the phone.

“Back then it was one day at a time, it was one minute at a time, almost. It was a very meager beginning and we’ve been very fortunate.”

Harold’s little company has done well over the last forty-five years. At the end of 2010, Continental Resources (formerly Shelly Dean Oil Co.), which is still based in Enid and Oklahoma City, had proved reserves of 364.7 MMboe (million barrels of oil equivalent). Continental now operates in twenty states and is far and away the largest leaseholder (855,936 acres) and producer (6.9 MMboe in 2010) in the Bakken Shale region of North Dakota and Montana.

Bakken, which accounted for 44% of Continental’s 14.7 MMboe production in 2010, had been written off by almost every industry expert just a few years ago as not worth exploring and developing—almost every expert, but not Harold Hamm. According to the company’s 2011 Annual Report, Continental is “on track to triple production and proved reserves from 2009 to 2014”. Like most businessmen in the One Percent, Mr. Hamm, who still owns 68% of Continental’s shares, consumes an infinitely small fraction of his income, preferring instead to reinvest in his community and in the work he loves to do.

One line that I remember most vividly from my ancient reading of Study in Power was a comment by one of John D. Rockefeller’s associates: “He sees far ahead of everyone else; and then, he sees around the corner.” What that man meant was that Rockefeller knew more than anyone else about his industry—because he studied more and worked harder. Rockefeller nearly always sought the counsel of his associates, but he was willing to accept full responsibility for his business decisions by repeatedly staking his own life and fortune on them. Ditto, Harold Hamm. That’s why they are the essential heroes—the One Percent. mh

Peak Oil? Not Yet, Stephen Leeb

April 5, 2012 by Helping Families Flourish, posted in Flourishing Article

Originally published in Flourishing February 2012.

Here and elsewhere over the last forty years, I’ve discussed the nonsense theory of “peak oil”, formerly promoted by newsletter writer, Stephen Leeb, and others. In case you missed it, “peak oil” means we’re running out of oil. We aren’t, and a new report, North American Energy Inventory*, dated December 2011, provides more incontrovertible evidence.

Based on data from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Energy Information Administration, the Energy Research Institute concludes, “The massive supply of available resources means that North America’s access to affordable energy is limited only by the government policies we choose to adopt.”

The report provides data on oil, natural gas, and coal, but for this article, I’ll restrict myself to oil.

North America has 1.79 trillion barrels of recoverable oil. That’s almost twice the combined reserves of all the OPEC nations, and more than six times the proved reserves of Saudi Arabia. It’s also more oil than the entire world has consumed since the first domestic oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania more than one hundred and fifty years ago.

Based on those figures, Kansas could continue its current rate of oil consumption for another 23,358 years. However, you should probably be told that those greedy oil people in Texas will run out in only 1,570 years, and when they do, they’ll come after our share. Okay, however unfunny our government’s energy policies are, that last remark was a joke. mh

* North American Energy Inventory, Institute for Energy Research, December, 2011. Available in PDF at http://energyforamerica.org/.

The Most Notable February Birthday

April 3, 2012April 3, 2012 by Helping Families Flourish, posted in Flourishing Article

Originally published in Flourishing February 2012.

George Washington, born in Virginia on February 22, 1732, has often been referred to as America’s indispensable man.

Like the other Founding Fathers, Washington was a child of the eighteenth century Age of Enlightenment. That period was influenced by the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, and Enlightenment thinkers applied scientific reasoning to human nature, society, and religion. Politically, the result was an emphasis on personal liberty and individual rights, republicanism, and religious tolerance.

The Founding Fathers had a vision of America as the land of responsible, independent, hard-working citizens, prospering in a system of political and economic freedom. George Washington believed thatAmerica would become a beacon of liberty and justice to men everywhere. And, for most of two hundred and twenty-five years, it has been.

George Washington developed his personal code of conduct through hard work, the embrace of military and entrepreneurial risk, and constant study. By the time of the revolutionary crisis in 1775, he had already achieved military, business, and social success. More importantly, he had achieved the strength of character for which he became justifiably famous.

By the time he was forty, George Washington was a man who had earned a serene confidence in his own judgment. He had developed a principled and iron-willed moral conviction. By 1775, all the personal prerequisites of great leadership were present. When George Washington then stepped onto the world stage – and from that time to the end of his life – he displayed his virtues to the world, the greatest of which was the integrity that was to place him first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen. George Washington’s integrity was on display, relentlessly and without interruption, from the time he accepted command of the colonial army in 1775 until the end of his life in 1799.

At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Washington arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts to find a sick and unruly army looking out on a Boston harbor filled with British warships. Six months later, by determination, discipline, and his personal example, he had created an army that was well organized and prepared to attack from a commanding height. The British, seeing the vulnerability of their position, quietly withdrew their ships.

Not long after, on a cold and wet Christmas night, Washington led his small and desperate army silently across the Delaware River to temporarily again turn the tide of war in favor of the Americans.

Throughout his military career,Washington led his men into battle fearlessly, frequently riding into enemy fire ahead of them. Often sporting bullet holes in his hat and tunic, he was a constant inspiration to his young, poorly clothed, and often unpaid and undernourished soldiers.

Then, at the end of the war, he remained true to his values, even as – after victory at Yorktown—he was showered with praise. His officers even urged him to declare himself America’s new king. He calmly quelled the idea on the strength of his character alone. And later, through two reluctant presidential terms,Washington’s every act underscored his commitment to Liberty and republican government.

A man like this, who is able to hold to a principled course of action, to pursue his values relentlessly, without compromise, and to do so under duress, deserves our deepest respect. And even more, I think, George Washington was a man who truly deserves our reverential awe.

This Presidents’ Day and forevermore, let’s honor the integrity of America’s indispensable man by honoring and defending what he fought for: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. mh

Life Without Oil

March 29, 2012 by Helping Families Flourish, posted in Flourishing Article

Originally published in Flourishing February 2012

Today, it’s common wisdom – if that’s the right word – to think of our environment as something that starts out healthy, but that we’ve messed up. The worst thing we produce, it is alleged, is “oil”. That just drives me crazy, because it’s the inverse of my entire life’s experience. Yours, too.

In the very early 1950’s, I attended kindergarten at Simpson Elementary School in Russell, Kansas. Our family lived in a rented house – a shack really – a few blocks away on Elm Street (no, not that Elm Street). I remember the day an oil-drilling rig pulled into our unpaved driveway and backed up across the street into the vacant lot next to my friend Nancy’s house. A few weeks later, the rig pulled out and a pump was installed; a black oil storage tank, too. Ker-thump, ker-thump, ker-thump. I was fascinated to watch the head of that pump bob up and down; and it never stopped. Drilling to China, maybe. Ker-thump, ker-thump – twenty-four hours a day. Like a beating heart. I don’t remember being frightened or otherwise damaged by the well, but I do remember that my mother was worried about a polio outbreak in our town that summer that had killed or crippled several neighborhood children about my age.

A few years later, from about the age of ten, my friends and I would swim in the Saline River as it flowed through the Bemis (oil) Field in Rooks County, Kansas between Hays and Plainville. The Boy Scout troop of which I was a member had access to a small cabin and skeet-shooting range in the area. Local oil producers had suspended some of their pipelines above the river, hanging them on steel cables. The pipelines occasionally leaked, but we weren’t concerned about the thin glassy film floating on the river’s surface; we were too busy watching for snakes. The suspended lines were also an adventuresome way to cross the river, swinging as they did from our shifting weight and a gusting high plains wind.

If you had been there with me, you would know that I was more endangered by the campfires we built from cow dung and fallen cottonwoods—or by the aforementioned snakes – than by the oil all around us. We strained and then boiled the drinking water we got from the river, not to rid it of oil – that floats to the top and is easily avoided by dipping your pail more deeply into the stream – but of bird droppings and other such “natural”, non-floating contaminates.

Amazingly, here I am, more than fifty years later, timeworn perhaps, but undamaged by the oily environment of my youth. The greatest risks to my health now seem to be appetite and sloth.

As I look back, I sometimes compare my life with oil to the life of Carl Petterson, Linda’s great-great-grandfather. When Carl came to America from Sweden more than one hundred and twenty five years ago, his first Kansas home was a sod-covered dugout in what is now the Green Mound neighborhood of southeastern Mitchell County. Even a kerosene lamp would have been a luxury for Carl, as I’m sure it might have been for some your ancestors. His nights were lit only by the moon, firewood, and lightning.

Carl didn’t have creosote posts or diesel-powered tractors. He fenced his eighty acres with hand-hewn limestone post-rock, and he walked his plow behind a horse. Still, Carl did well enough to leave five acres of his land for a church, and another five for the church cemetery, where Linda and I will be buried.

Today, his descendants can cultivate his eighty acres and mow his cemetery in less time than it took Carl to hitch up his horse and plow.

I could, of course, tell a similar story about Isaac Martin Harvey, who was born in London, and his son George Washington Harvey, who was born in Peoria, Illinois. They settled together on land that now forms the bottom of Lake Afton west of Wichita and south of Goddard. You know that Afton is a man-made lake providing an important water supply to area residents, as well as a relaxing place for recreation. It was developed in the 1930’s–and is currently maintained—with the use of machinery powered by refined derivatives of oil.

Contrary to modern assumptions, nature doesn’t give us a healthy environment to live in. For those who think that oil and oil pipelines are “dirty” and “unnatural”, I suggest reading some history* about more “natural,” pre-industrial times—or visiting a country where people are still living in “natural,” pre-industrial conditions. One might study places and times where the streets and streams were (and are) filled with both human and animal excrement; where childhood mortality exceeded (and still exceeds) fifty percent; where walking is the standard mode of transportation; and where gas stations and power plants are unheard of. I could go on, but you know all this. Many of you have been there and done that.

We in America live in an environment where the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat will not make us sick; and where we can even cope with natural catastrophes like Greensburg and Joplin. These are achievements made possible by cheap and abundant energy, e.g. oil. We can live this way only by getting machines—powered mostly by oil and its derivatives—to do more than ninety-nine percent of our physical, and even mental, work for us.

Products derived from oil are what we need to build and maintain comfortable, climate controlled homes. We need oil to produce and transport vast quantities of fresh and frozen food, to build hospitals, and to manufacture pharmaceuticals and orthopedic devices; etc., ad infinitum.

And, how do we travel across the country and around the world, very often for the sole purpose of safely enjoying the most beautiful parts of nature, which pre-industrial people had neither the time nor the energy to do? Oil.

I know that you believe in making decisions based on facts, not fantasies. So, consider the fact that so-called “green” technologies have given us no evidence that they can produce the plentiful, cheap, reliable energy that a modern and healthy human environment requires. Despite more than forty years of government subsidies, which draw resources from more viable and freely chosen purposes, and utopian “green” fantasies incessantly promoted by the government, the media, and in our schools, only two percent of the world’s energy comes from solar and wind technologies. Even that two percent must be backed up by conventional power-generating sources like nuclear, coal, hydro, natural gas—and oil. The sun is helpless at night; and even in Kansas, the wind is calm sometimes. But, these are the least of the obstacles to “green” energy efficiency. The laws of physics pose far greater, even insoluble, problems.

I know I’m old-fashioned: I still believe in a day’s work for a day’s pay and stuff like that. But it’s amazing to me that we’re so gullible as to take energy advice from politicians who tell us to trust our health and prosperity to unproven unprovable and wasteful “green energy” technologies. All the while, they condemn as “dirty” the very energy source—oil—that has brought us the cleanest, healthiest, most prosperous environment in the history of mankind.

Go figure. There are literally billions of people around the world who yearn for a liquid fuel, carried through a magnificently stout pipeline – or any pipeline – to help them create a modern human environment for themselves and their families. Yet here we are, so pleased with our own “green-ness” that we take the practical and affordable energy we get from fossil fuels for granted. And now, we’re actually putting another clamp on the aorta of our energy-driven, oil-dependent economy by postponing the proven, subsidy-free, Keystone XL Pipeline.

Our nature as human beings is to use our intelligence to create more livable and more comfortable environments for our families and ourselves. Dug-outs and dung fires will no longer do. Moreover, in America, we don’t need rulers or czars to dictate or approve what, where, and how we can produce and transport the energy our lives require. Perhaps I digress, but I don’t think so.

We are intelligent and independent individuals living in a society dedicated to liberty and prosperity. As such we have every right and obligation to embrace market-based energy production and privately financed transportation systems; in particular, the Keystone XL Pipeline which is needed now to bring oil from Canada to America’s gulf coast refineries.

The Keystone XL Pipeline would double the capacity of the existing Keystone from 591,000 barrels of oil per day to 1.3 million barrels. The CEO of Gulf Oil estimates that Keystone XL would save American consumers about $.20 per gallon on the price of gasoline. Alternatively of course, we can continue to import that oil from Saudi Arabia. No joke, that’s another price we’ll pay for being “green”.

So, the “dirty oil” objection is really just a dirty trick. Every energy source creates some kind of unpleasant byproduct. I’ve already mentioned firewood and cow dung, and I trust your experience is close enough to my own, that no further detail is needed. I could tell you about the side-effects of mining the materials that go into solar panels and windmills, and the incredible amount of coal and oil that goes into manufacturing, transporting, and assembling their parts, but you can easily intuit all of that for yourself. The “dirty oil” objection is just a shell game used by scoundrels—and that is exactly the right word—to divert our attention from the fact that they really don’t want any kind of industrial development at all.

Let me say it again, plainly: Virtually every necessity and convenience of modern life depends on the production and flow of oil—a Herculean task. It is sheer fantasy to imagine that the likes of Solyndra or Beacon Power will ever match the life-enhancing power of North America’s great oil industry. mh

* A good place to start is Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Vol. I: The Structure of Everyday Life, Fernand Braudel, University of California Press, 1992.

Faulty Lens Follow-Up

March 20, 2012 by Helping Families Flourish, posted in Flourishing Article

Originally published in Flourishing January 2012

In the November issue of this newsletter, I discussed the Occupy Wall Street protestors, saying that they were viewing the world through a “faulty intellectual lens”. The point of the article was that many of the protestors are confused. Among other things, they don’t understand the “capitalist function”, which is to provide financing for the improvement of the human condition.

So, I was very pleased to read* about protestor Tracy Postert.

Tracy has a PhD. in biomedical science, with a specialty in pharmacology. Frustrated at being unable to find a job in academia, she held signs in Zucotti Park saying “Reagan Sucks”, and “I’ll Vote After the Revolution”. (Yes, the logic escapes me, too.)

Tracy finally realized that those signs weren’t helping her find a job, and she put up a new one:

PhD. Biomedical Scientist Seeking Full Time

Employment—Ask Me for My Résumé

And, what do you know? Wayne Kaufman, Chief Market Analyst at John Thomas Financial (located at14 Wall Street) saw her sign, read her résumé, called her in for an interview, and offered her a job analyzing medical companies as potential investments.

She accepted.

Tracy is now studying to become a Chartered Financial Analyst, saying, “I want to get a perfect score.”

Q.E.D. (quod erat demonstrandum) The way you look at things really does make a difference. mh

*Occupier Gets an Occupation, nypost.com, December 5, 2011.

The Pessimists’ Dead-End

March 15, 2012 by Helping Families Flourish, posted in Flourishing Article

Originally published in Flourishing January 2012

In 1957, Bennett Cerf, then CEO of Random House, took a chance on a wildly dystopian and philosophically radical novel. You may have heard of it—more than seven million copies have been sold, and many of its author’s personal papers are now housed in the Smithsonian—Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.

I mention Atlas here, because its author is now widely perceived to have been incredibly prescient. For example: One of the most interesting characters in the novel, Ellis Wyatt, had figured out how to get oil from shale, a crazy idea back in 1957. Like today’s high tech oil and gas producers, Wyatt’s genius had the potential to lift the nation’s economy out of a deep recession. In the novel, government leaders conspired with their business cronies and political supporters to destroy a railroad needed to transport crude oil from Wyatt’sColorado oil fields to distant refineries. Equivalently today (December 20, 2011), after three years of environmental studies, our President and Congress are still fighting over the construction of a similarly needed pipeline.

But pessimists and dystopians, please make a note:

In the real world—sooner or later—rational economic self-interest trumps political ideology, always.

And, increased oil and natural gas production, along with an efficient transportation and pipeline system, are in the best interests of American businesses, American job-seekers, and American consumers. So, let’s get right to the good news.

Shale gas production is not just increasing, it’s growing almost exponentially. In 2010, shale gas production represented 29% of natural gas wells completed and 27% of total natural gas production in the U.S. By 2020, it’s expected that shale gas production will more than double, and by 2035 shale gas will represent 60% of all American natural gas production. IHS Global¹, a respected worldwide research firm, estimates that the value of the natural gas extracted from shale will grow from about $26 billion in 2010 to $72 billion in 2020, and more than $153 billion by 2035; and that estimate assumes that natural gas prices will increase at a rate less than the overall inflation rate.

In 2010, shale gas production contributed about $76 billion to domestic GDP, and more than $18.6 billion to federal, state, and local government tax and royalty revenues. Those numbers are expected to triple to $231 billion and $57 billion by 2035.

At a time (2010) when jobs were—as they are now—seemingly in short supply, the shale gas industry supported more than 600,000 American jobs. By 2035, that number is expected to grow to 1.6 million.

And, here is why I’m really excited about the potential expansion of the shale gas industry: Increasing production of natural gas could mean lower energy costs, and lower energy costs could mean a new industrial renaissance forAmerica. According to the IHS study, increasing production of shale gas could lower the cost of manufacturing in many critical American industries.

Among the possible beneficiaries, the electric utility industry is likely to move away from coal and toward natural gas as a fuel for its generating plants. Exports of PVC and related products manufactured in theU.S.have already tripled since 2007 as a percentage of total production. Other chemical producers, including agricultural chemical manufacturers, and aluminum, steel, and cement producers could benefit, too.

This is all confirmed by another new study²by Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, which found that seventeen chemical, metal, and industrial manufacturers commented in their 2011 SEC filings that shale gas developments drove demand for their products, compared to no—zero—such statements just three years ago.

The PwC study also says that it’s very likely that there will be a significant return of manufacturing from offshore in coming years—as many as one million new jobs by 2025—especially to areas of the country friendly to shale gas production and/or with easy pipeline access.

Labor costs overseas and corporate tax rates at home could be negative factors, but don’t pooh-pooh these more positive conclusions too quickly, as tax and labor conditions could change suddenly, dramatically, and favorably, too.

Like the heroes in Atlas Shrugged, I have an implicit trust in the American entrepreneurial spirit. I first witnessed that spirit as a teenager among the roughnecks of Ellis County, which at the time was the highest oil producing county in Kansas. That spirit still lives in America—especially in the shale gas and oil industry—and that’s why I’m so sure the pessimists are wrong. mh

The Economic and Employment Contributions of Shale Gas in the United States, IHS Global Insight (USA) Inc., December 2011.
Shale Gas: A renaissance in U.S. manufacturing? PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, December 2011.

Achievement is Not Normal

March 13, 2012 by Helping Families Flourish, posted in Flourishing Article

Originally published in Flourishing January 2012.

Many personal attributes, such as height and IQ scores, are distributed “normally” throughout the population. In most things, most people are near the middle of the range and very few are far away from the middle. The distribution is symmetric, which means—as in the case of height—that as many people are taller than average, as are shorter than average. Almost no one exceeds the average in height or IQ by more than about 25%. You could plot this on the “normal distribution” chart above.

Achievement is not like that. The highest achievers accomplish far more than the average person. For example, the best computer programmers are many times more productive than average programmers. Think Bill Gates, whose programming and entrepreneurial genius has literally changed the world.

Best-selling authors far outsell average authors. Think J. K. Rowling, whose seven Harry Potter books have sold more than 350 million copies and enriched the lives of millions more.

Achievement doesn’t graph as “normal”. Statistically speaking, it’s “log normal”. Those few who achieve at the extreme do things that virtually no one else does. Altogether, those things—whatever they are in particular cases—don’t just add up to higher achievement, they multiply. That’s a good thing to know.

If you’re still wondering why 20% of the population earns 60% of the income and the top 1% earns 20% of the income, that’s the reason. They’re not “normal”. They create extreme value.

That’s a good thing; and a good thing to know, too. mh

Outwitting The Difficult Child

March 8, 2012 by Helping Families Flourish, posted in Flourishing Article

Originally published in Flourishing January 2012

The worst thing that can befall any parent is to outlive one of their children. In that regard, Linda and I have been very lucky, and a day does not pass, but that we give thanks.

I believe that it’s equally sad when a parent or grandparent has given up on their child or grandchild. This is perhaps a more common tragedy. Thankfully, we have not had that experience, either; but at times, we have had serious communication gaps.

I’m neither a psychologist nor family therapist, but here is what I think I’ve learned:

When you feel your child is shutting you out, or just talking past you; that child may be telling you something important about your own communication habits. Please know that I’m telling you this as a friend, and as a serial offender: That child may be, in effect, your family’s Jiminy Cricket.

From more than twenty years of working closely with hundreds of families, I’ve concluded that a key to the success of flourishing families is their ability to extend unconditional love, and to convey an unconditional commitment to listen non-judgmentally.

So, if you’re considering giving up on your child or grandchild, you might want, instead, to step back and ask yourself, “What message am I missing—and what opportunity is our family forfeiting—because I’m not willing to listen and learn?” mh

HT: John A. Warnick, http://johnawarnick.typepad.com/seedlings