Open Letter to All Ungrateful Parents
Dear Ungrateful Parents:
When you have children who are going great things and you never give them any praise, you deserve to be called ungrateful parents. You should show your children who are doing wonderful things how much you appreciate them. You could have children who have dropped out of school, on drugs, selling drugs and/or etc. but they are not. Don’t simply say the reason they‘re not doing unbecoming things is you reared them effectively. While you may have done an excellent job rearing your children, this does not mean that they had to make good decisions. They had free will to make horrible decisions and live a life that would bring you shame.
Too often children who always get into trouble receive the most attention from their parents—while the children who are doing honorable things are overlooked. This shouldn’t be a reality in many homes. Take time to show your children you love them and are thankful for the positive things they do. When your children see you’re not going to give them any special recognition and attention for the noteworthy things they do, then they can turn to doing negative things as a means of getting your attention. Children know poor behavior gains attention from their parents. Your children want to know they have your attention.
Don’t work your children like they are your slaves. Your children are not your slaves! When they do things around the house to make a valuable contribution to the workload, let them know you appreciate what they do and do something special for them from time to time to prove your appreciation.
When your children bring home good or great grades, this is a big deal and you need to show them this is a big deal. Don’t simply act like getting good or great grades is what they’re expected to do without truly rewarding them for their grades. Classroom demands are increasing for students and their great work needs to be acknowledged and rewarded. Everyone likes to be acknowledged and rewarded at some point. It’s quite understandable for a child to want to receive praise and incentives for the great work they do at school and home.
Learn to listen to your children before it’s too late. Your child can be considering suicide and you not even know because you’re too busy fussing and/or cussing at him or her about some inane matter(s). When you talk to your children, you can learn about their problems, fears, dreams, and etc., which can help you to be better able to lead them on a path to success and aid them in proper development.
After the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut that left many young children dead, this should reveal to you how important it is to treasure each moment with your children. When your child goes to school and you’re at work, it’s not guaranteed that he or she will return. Every opportunity you have to love on your child should be seized.
Sincerely,
Antonio Maurice Daniels
University of Wisconsin-Madison
End One-Way Street Relationships
I hate to be the one to tell you but you’re not going to be able to fool people forever. A person does not have to be the most intellectually sophisticated individual to recognize a pattern of being used by you. People will eventually recognize when you only communicate with them when you want something from them. Folks will start to notice that you only respond back to their text messages, Facebook messages, tweets, emails, and phone calls when you want something. In due time, people will see that you make everything about yourself. Many people who like to try to get over on people will only be upbeat around them when they are planning to ask them to do something for them.
It’s amazing how people will become your best friend when they want you to give them money and/or sex. It’s just a harsh reality that some people will be in your life just for what they can get out of you and from you. Now, I’ve written about these people who try to use you in Don’t Be A Leech!, and told you that you have to get rid of people who don’t value you in Spring Clean, but we need to explore why we continue to maintain relationships with people who just use us.
What is it about us that allows us to maintain relationships with people who use us? For the purposes of this article, when I refer to the word “relationships,” I mean relationships of all types, including friendships, marriages, intimate relationships, family relationships, business relationships, and etc. One of the dominant reasons why many of us, in my opinion, continue to maintain relationships with people who just use us is we are just selfless. This selflessness, however, can lead us to blindness for a certain period of time. The blindness that we experience for a certain period of time can cause us to intentionally or unintentionally overlook deliberate attempts by people to use us.
There’s a clear difference between people receiving from you because they are in need of your help, but that’s completely different from people who just are taking advantage of your selflessness and willingness to help them because they know the vulnerabilities of your selflessness.
When you are selflessly giving to people, make sure that you get something in return from them—that something can be as simple as a “thank you” or acts and/or words that evince gratitude.
Lately, I’ve witnessed how I will do substantial things for people and will not even receive any responses from them, not even responses that tell me “thank you” or that they received what I sent them. Some people seem to think that it’s my job to help them, and when I try to see if they received what I’ve sent them, I will not even get a reply from them via text message, email and/or telephone. Now, I want you to bear in mind that many of the substantial things that I have done for them involved me staying up all night to complete. I very much appreciate these people for giving me an education that I could have never obtained through my undergraduate and graduate training.
What I’ve learned is that you cannot allow yourself to become a blind giver. You have to be a wise giver. When you allow yourself to become a reckless giver, you open yourself to allowing others to exploit you. I’ve learned from those who have used me that you have to do a simple evaluation of everyone who you help. If these people are not giving you at least a sincere “thank you” in return for what you do for them, then please disassociate yourself from them. You don’t have to have a major altercation with them. All you need to do is don’t answer their phone calls, text messages, emails, and etc.—much in the same way that they have done to you for certain periods of time until they needed something else from you.
Don’t you just love when people try to act like they didn’t get your text message, Facebook message, direct message on Twitter, phone call, and/or email, but you see that they have tweeted several times since you contacted them and/or have updated their Facebook status after you have contacted them?
I urge you to discontinue relationships with people where they are just using you. These types of relationships simply bring you down inevitably. Don’t let your great selflessness turn into unintentional or intentional blindness. When people fail to demonstrate how appreciative they are of you when you clearly deserve appreciation, then remove these people from your life. At the end of the day, you cannot let your selflessness turn into stupidity.
For those readers who know me and you think this article is addressing you, it probably is. If I don’t tell you first, just ask me and I will let you know. I don’t do third person—never have and never will. When have you known me to hold back anything that I have to say to you and/or about you? Exactly!
Love responsibly. Give responsibly. Help responsibly. Be responsible.
Antonio Maurice Daniels
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Spring Clean Some Human Beings Right Out of Your Life
As I approach 30 years of life, it really just hit me: I’m responsible for how I continue to allow people to treat me. There comes a point when you have to get fed up with the things that people do to you. It’s only when you acknowledge that enough is enough that you will truly reclaim full dominion over your life. At the very minimum, you must demand people to treat you with basic respect. If people are not willing to treat you with respect, then take a stand against them. Cast those who are not willing to respect you out of your life. Do it right now! I had to come to the realization that if people are not going to do anything else they are going to respect me. I have recognized that I have the power to not allow disrespectful people to occupy space in my life. As long as you accept disrespectful people in your life, you need to own full responsibility for their treatment of you. It’s not their fault—it’s your fault. You keep allowing it so go ahead and own what you are doing to yourself.
Many of the people in our lives are disposable, but we keep them around like they are necessities. In essence, many people are optional but we let them stay around us like we don’t have a choice. When they keep mistreating and disrespecting you, look right in the mirror at the person who should be held completely responsible for this mistreatment and disrespect. You begin to press yourself smaller and smaller when you give people the constant authority to devalue you. Your mother and father did not conceive you to sit up there and let people persist to push you around and do you any way they want. You have the power right now to stop this from happening.
What’s really sad is many of us are not able to even understand when people are constantly disrespecting and mistreating us. We have allowed disrespect and mistreatment to become such the norm in our lives that we don’t see them as needing to be eradicated from our lives. Open your eyes and see what’s really going on around you. You deserve to be valued. The things that are important to you deserve to be respected.
I want you to think critically about the people in your life and give them a comprehensive evaluation. Are there any people who really do not value you as a person? Are there people who do not value your education, business, responsibilities, time, and/or etc.? Are there people who don’t show you appreciation for the things you do for them? Are there people who don’t evince their gratitude to you? If you have people like this in your life, then you need to dismiss them right now. It really is that simple when you truly love yourself.
Are you in a “serious” relationship with a person who only values you for the sexual intercourse? If so, eliminate this person from your life. Do you have “friends” who only come around you when they want something? Cast these people out of your life! Are there people in your life who only want to talk to you about themselves all the time and everything is always about them? Get rid of them right now.
We need to start appreciating and valuing ourselves more. Love yourself enough to get rid of the people in your life who are not good for you. The right time for some Spring cleaning is right now. Get busy!
Antonio Maurice Daniels
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ungratefulness is Not a Good Look
When someone does something for you, you should have the decency to thank him or her. Now, you don’t have to thank people everyday for something they have done for you, but you should be eternally grateful for what they have done for you. When someone has helped you to get to the mountaintop, don’t look at them while you’re on the mountaintop like “who are you?” Reality check: This is the same person who was on the mountaintop before he or she threw you a rope to help you get on the mountaintop. Don’t ever forget this!
You can be on the mountaintop today and in the dark abyss tomorrow. You better start appreciating those people who have demonstrated nothing but a willing to help you. When someone who has proven to be a person who can and will help you, don’t get an attitude with him or her the moment he or she is unable to assist you. To get an attitude with someone who has proven time and time again to be a selfless giver to you, this manifests your true ungratefulness. Ungratefulness has its provenance in selfishness. You may be able to call me many things, but ungrateful is one thing that you cannot truthfully call me.
In no way am I asserting that you need to become a slave to the people who help you. You shouldn’t be a slave for any person! What you should be is an appreciative person who acknowledges the things that others have done and do for you. People often don’t take the time to reflect on how much others are helping them. They simply take for granted the help that others are constantly providing them. I encourage you to never take for granted the help that people give you. What are you going to do when you no longer receive the help that you so desperately need to continue to receive? You can sit back and act like you will survive without it. You probably will survive without their help but you certainly will be significantly impacted by this loss of help over time.
Those who give to others should not hold their generosity over the heads of others either. If you are going to be a true giver, don’t look for people to have a banquet in your honor each time you evince your selflessness. It’s more than reasonable for you to expect a simple thank you each time that you do something for others, however. You are well within reason to expect people to show gratitude for the things you do for them. Just don’t be the type of person who uses his or her abilities as ways to make people do what you want them to do. Moreover, I encourage you to not be the type of person who constantly reminds people of everything you have done and do for them. When you do this, it comes across as you have done and do those things for them for sheer recognition. You can be selfish in the way in which you give too—acknowledge that!
It’s just right to do right!
Antonio Maurice Daniels
University of Wisconsin-Madison
