TODAY I BECAME MORE KEENLY AWARE OF THE DANGEROUS TENDENCIES OF MY CHILDREN. THROUGH CAREFUL OBSERVATION, I HAVE COME TO REALIZE THAT ALL THREE OF MY CHILDREN ARE PRONE TO CHILDISH RISK TAKING, BUT FOR SOME REASON TODAY THEY TOOK IT TO A WHOLE NEW LEVEL.
It started after lunch. I came home for a quick bite and on my way down the stairs to leave, Emma, my oldest who is nine, came running up the stairs...with a wild and massive ball of yarn in her arms, a pair of crochet needles in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other!
"Aggghhhh," was the first sound out of my mouth as the thought of her missing a step and falling forward with all those sharp objects pointed at her neck entered my mind. I shouted an exasperated plea to slow down. She did then looked at me over her shoulder in complete bewilderment as to why I was so excited. Instead of trying to explain I just looked wideeyed at my wife in amazement.
The next incident occurred after dinner as I ascended the previously mentioned staircase to check up on jammies and brushed teeth. Hearing the voice of my son Alex, who turned six on Saturday, I looked up expecting him to be standing at the top of the stairs with his tooth brush in hand. But he wasn't standing, he was hanging off the banister over the foyer in our entry way!
The thought of startling him and sending him plummeting to the travertine below, stifled my urge to yell in a helpless panic. In a moderately controlled voice, I managed to talk him into climbing back over the railing to safety.
After collecting my wits, I went back downstairs with my daughter Gretchen, who is four, to wait for the other two to come down for story time. Assuming I had a few minutes, I jumped on the computer to check the news and quickly tuned everything else out. A couple of minutes later, as if waking from a dream, I turned around to see my youngest launching off the couch head first towards the brick hearth, her little pillow and blanket arranged on the floor to soften her landing!
My voice was suspended in disbelief, but only long enough to watch her clamor back to the couch to do it again!
It was at this point, with my nerves hopelessly frazzled, I concluded that this was more than a coincidence, and worthy of an article. So...I turned back around and jotted down a reference about my three Evel Knievals, then commenced normal bed time activities.
In all three instances, my children seemed oblivious to what I considered extreme dangers You could say there are similarities between my kids and my own business career.
In the boom times prior to 2007, I was blissfully (and dangerously) ignorant of the realities that awaited my employees and my company and because of my inexperience, more than a little suffering for those involved has occurred. In a lot of ways, my growth as a leader, a manager, and an owner over the last couple of years has been like that of my youth...childhood, adolescence, then adulthood.
It would seem like we entered this downturn somewhere between childhood and the teenage years. And, like the young boys on the frontier whose adolescence was accelerated and cut short by the necessities of familial survival, we've been forced to grow up or die.
Today it feels like we are beginning to emerge from that awkward stage of life and entering the era of self-confidence, excitement, and limitless opportunity that is early adulthood.
Thankfully as my three beautiful children grow, their awareness will grow too and they will become sensitive to those things that can harm them. My hope is that through their own mistakes and the advice I hope they will take, my kids will grow up and become responsible adolescents, and if they survive that stage, responsible, productive adults.
So goes my hope for the stone industry.
We are wiser now, and more sensitive to the dangers that exist. We have survived our mistakes and even learned from them. We are truly growing up and the rest of our lives is only just beginning!
Aaron J. Crowley is the founder and president of FabricatorsFriend.com, the exclusive promoter of Stone Sleeve fabricator sleeves and Bullet Proof aprons.
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