When a friend of mine had a column in The Daily two years ago, the Northwestern Chronicle opined, “Even his mom doesn’t read his columns.” My situation isn’t quite so bad.
My mom does read my columns — about a week or two late. And when she does read them, she’s constantly afraid that I’m going to embarrass her or say something that makes me look like a jerk.
My dad is the same way. Last week he told me he was too busy at work to read my column.
“I barely had time to make my football picks,” he said.
Such skewed priorities would worry me if I didn’t realize how lucky I am to have Bill and Diane Lowe as my parents. Because the truth is that they are too busy to read my columns. They’re doing a hell of a lot more than me to make this world a better place.
My dad is the chief operating officer of a non-profit, nursing home organization and I think I can objectively say he’s the most competent employee in the organization. My mom is a middle-school counselor. While working full-time, she’s practically a full-time student too, taking three classes to get a master’s degree so she can become a principal. They’ve dedicated their lives to helping other people.
All this while I’m taking four classes, working a few hours moving furniture at Norris University Center and writing a column for The Daily.
Last week I said that education is the key to life. I believe that, but I also know I couldn’t have done anything without my parents. They are the ones who instilled in me a love of education and made me (I hope) open-minded and generous.
Everything that’s good about me I owe to them. I am, shall we say, happy with the way I turned out.
Parenting seems to me an incredibly fragile thing. There are so many ways to screw it up. But I think it helps to be a truly good person, to give your children a model to emulate.
It angers me that there are so many parents in the world who aren’t great parents, who beat their kids, make them feel insecure or breed prejudice in them. It makes me respect my parents all the more, and it makes me scared that I won’t be able to live up to their example.
I wasn’t always this aware of the greatness of my parents. When I was about 10 years old, I told them I couldn’t say they were there best parents in the world because I hadn’t tried them all out. I couldn’t ever really be sure without further research.
But now, after seeing all they’ve done to set me up for success and all they’ve done to make the world a better place, I am sure. I’ve got the best parents in the world. I’m so sure that I almost look down on others’ parents.
My mom just cringed.
Greg Lowe is a Medill senior. He can be reached at [email protected].
