NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

June 10, 1999

Kim Bushaw, Parent Line Program Specialist
NDSU Extension Service

Dear Faithful Readers,

Years ago when I put the first Parent Line column together, I wrote that beginnings are always hard. I couldn't have predicted then how hard the ending would be, but now that it is staring at me, I need to address that too.

The Parent Line and this column will officially end on June 30. We are a casualty of budget reductions. I don't know any more than this, so please don't ask me. What I do know is that I have had a wonderful time visiting with you both here in print and on the Parent Line for the past six and a half years.

I have learned so much from my time here that I feel rich with knowledge, and you are to thank for being my teachers. You have taught me what it's like to experience thousands of things that I never could have known without you. I've had the sheer joy of visiting with parents who are calling to see how to help their infant learn better, sleep longer, eat faster or slower, have a bowel movement more or less regularly. You name it, and we've probably discussed it.

I have listened in awe and learned from you what it's like to live in a country that is far from your home, from your mother, from your familiar ways. I have cried with you when you've had to explain death to your children—the death of their baseball-throwing grandad, their faithful dog, their baby sister. I've learned about rearing children from single dads and teen moms, from people who indulge their children and those who scrape to feed them. I have shared your pain when your child was bullied or hurt or wrongly accused. I have laughed regularly at the adorable antics of your children , of you, of my own past (and future) mistakes in child rearing. I've laughed a lot.

Sometimes the phone rings non-stop all day and I talk until I'm out of ideas and out of voice, and I go home and turn off the radio and sit quietly thinking about my day—and you. But then my own child needs help with a homework problem or wants supper, or someone turns the radio back on and I click into "mother mode" for the rest of the evening. Sometimes you call back and let me know what happened, and sometimes I continue to wonder.

When the phone is quiet, I write, I read and I wonder why it isn't ringing every other minute. Then I imagine that parents are cooing to their infants, splashing in puddles with their toddlers, building forts with their preschoolers, meeting their school-agers at the bus stop or laughing over a soda with their teen. Everything is going right, so why call?

I know better, but I don't want to think of people being so sad or lonely or empty or angry that they can't reach for the phone, but I know that happens too. I'm glad when they can finally call for help and answers and a listening ear.

I regularly tell my children to leave things a little better than they found them. This is as true about leaving a room a little cleaner as it is leaving a heart a little lighter or a smile a little brighter. I also tell them that life is about balance. I hope they are listening when I tell them these things. Time will tell.

The other belief I hold is that we humans are always learning as well as teaching. Parents and all breathing adults have a responsibility in this zany world to teach those things that they want children to learn, for it is as true for our children as it was for our parents that actions speak louder than words.

I will miss you. I will miss this job. Live well, model much.

Respectfully yours,

Kim

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Source: Kim Bushaw (701) 231-1070

Editor: Becky Koch (701) 231-7875