Are your kids quitters or fighters?

I’ve been working through something with one of my kids.

You probably think I’m going to tell you all about it, but I’m not.

Believe it or not, I don’t write on this blog about EVERYTHING that happens in our home.

After all, my kids have a right to some privacy.

But, for the sake of this entry, what’s more important is not “what we’re working through” but what the message is — because I think it’s an important one.

“Be a fighter, not a quitter.”

No matter what age we are, we all deal with some things in this life.

I was handed a lot to deal with as I was growing up — and even into my young adult years.

When I was 13, my dad died suddenly of a heart attack.

When I was 27 and a college senior (yes, I was late in finishing college, but that’s another story for another entry) my mom died of cancer. She had kidney cancer that spread to her entire lymph system.

Then, when I was 35, I had my only brother die of throat cancer. He was 42.

When people hear these details, they usually say: “Wow! That’s a lot. That must have been hard to deal with.”

The truth is, it was hard to deal with.

But, I decided fairly early on that there were two choices:

• One choice, and not the best one, was to feel sorry for myself, sit in the corner and cry and be a quitter. Don’t get me wrong, grieving and crying are an important step, but at some point, I decided I needed to move ahead (notice I didn’t say move on) and live the kind of life my parents sacrificed for me to have.

• The other choice, which you may have picked up on a few sentences ago, was to fight. Part of “not quitting” is to fight — to fight through the circumstances, to have a positive outlook and make the best of the situation.

So, that’s what I tell my kids.

“Do you want to be a quitter or a fighter?”

Quitting is easy, but can be self-destructive and definitely has some negative consequences.

Fighting is harder, but it’s worth it. The only way you get the results that you want and that your loved ones want for you is to fight through the tough times.

I close with this quote I read recently, which I think sums up my point pretty well.

“It will be OK in the end. If it’s not OK, then it’s not the end.”

• An editor by day, Scott Mayes is also dad to Matthew, Micah and Nathan. He’s a high school parent, a youth football dad and changes diapers. He’s experienced many things as a parent, but is absolutely clueless about raising daughters.

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