Values of the Green Man

Our kids were sent to Mrs. Moon’s preschool.

In Port Clinton, Ohio, in the late 1990s, she was a favorite of many families, and she lived up to the billing.

The lasting impact for us was not the values and lessons she bestowed on our boys.

It was the lesson she instilled in two newer parents.

One class day when it was time to leave, our son was missing his little green-man toy he brought that day.

Or was it the red man? Or blue man?

It was the kind of toy every boy had: A nondescript plastic thingy with no real brand name that a 3-year-old could recall. It cost about 50 cents in the plastic-thingy bin at the dollar store.

But it came with totally awesome powers that could soar planets, demolish mountains with one punch and take down bad dads who said no to more ice cream.

Well, Green Man was missing as it was time to go.

Our son was stricken. But as parents with a schedule and another 50 cents to get another toy, we were ready to go.

“It’s not that important,” we said.

Mrs. Moon looked at us with a polite force of 1,000 Green Men:

“No. But it is important to him. We will look for it.”

Mom and dad were going nowhere.

In short time, Green Man was found, and a son had his vital superpower friend of that moment.

More importantly, a parental lesson was served.

It lasts through today as one of Mrs. Moon’s boys graduates high school a few hours down the road from Port Clinton.

I’ll admit now: There’s no way in hell I was able to spend the past 15 years perfectly adhering to Mrs. Moon’s lesson.

I tried. It seemed her voice would sound loudest at the most pivotal moments of child-rearing.

Most parents want their kids to be so much – what’s important to us. But try as we might, they will ultimately be who they want to be – what is important to them.

Within our tiny hockey community, I was rightfully teased for launching this booming verbal “Skate” from the bleachers when our oldest was in or near the play. Accurately spelled out, I think my yell would look like “Skaaayyyyyytttte.” He heard it, as did the entire arena, as did most folks in whatever Zip code we’d be in that moment.

The urging was important to me. But it wasn’t important to him – in that form, at least. The result was, I yelled “Skaaaaayyyyyyyytttte” his first few years of hockey with no sustained effect. These past few years have been as exceptionally quiet as the first few years were loud.

Such scenarios have played out many times across many life episodes for our graduate and his brothers. In the house, in school, in the community, on stage, on ice, on the field, at the dinner table, etc.

When our parent-child agendas would conflict, Mrs. Moon’s lesson would find its way out of a tidy corner of my memory. Sometimes it arrived in time. Sometimes it came too late – at the best quiet of day just before you sleep when you can wonder uninterrupted. “As a parent, are you doing what’s best?”

So we now have our first graduate today – a moment both proud and perilous.

One dad I know shrugged off his son’s graduation this year. It was his fourth child with a fifth still to graduate. Another dad shared a tale of his wife’s despair when their son graduated and started life anew 10 states away.

I’d guess our feelings are in the middle of that – proud yet petrified.

What has been important for us is to have him decide a calculated “next” that is normal, predictable and caters to the laws of probability.

However, over the past few weeks, what’s important to him is a “next” that is less normal, less predictable and less probable.

Mrs. Moon’s lesson echoed once again. And two parents listened. Again.

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes emails about stories and our newspaper. Email him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on vindy.com. Tweet him, too, at @tfranko.