IF YOU LOVE YOUR CHILDREN YOU WILL READ THIS!

I have been seeing this meme posted on social media lately, and here's why it's absolutely irresponsible, ignorant, and dangerous to your children.

There is a notorious story that haunts self-defense classes about a child who had a father who said, "If anyone ever touches you, I'll kill them." We all understand this primal drive to protect children and those we love. However, this child was keeping secret that they were being molested, and since they also loved and trusted their dad. The child didn't tell anyone because they didn't want their dad to kill this person and be taken away from them. Because this child believed that if their dad found out, then dad would kill the abuser, then dad would have to either run from the law or go to prison. So, as an act of love to protect their father, the child never spoke up, and the abuse kept happening. 

You may want to argue with me on this issue, but open your mind and your heart and watch your tongue before crap like this does more harm than good. [PS: I used to be this way, so learn from a reformed douchebag like myself and let's all become badasses together] 

Your children usually know a couple of things. They know they love you, they can trust you, and you're awesome (like a superhero). They also know that murder can get the person they love and trust thrown in jail, and that's not good. 

Disclaimer: If you catch a person harming or abusing children, that meme is on point. Destroy them! However, a lot of abuse is hidden very well, which is why this meme seems so dangerous. You will most likely not catch a predator in the act, so you must create a safe space and train your children to be aware and space for them to talk to you about sensitive issues that can be traumatic and horrific. When I was learning to be a CPS reporter, a big part of creating safety was controlling my ego to ensure I was focusing on the child's safety and not my internal ignorant ego that I wanted to protect by taking matters into my own hands. I was there to guide them and support them through the process. 

[Now read that stupid meme again, and let's move toward love, power, and wisdom]

This meme results from a culture that only looks at the surface. It's a result of fear and ego mixed with an undisciplined unconscious personal narrative. It starts when you read a quote or meme and it inspires you, then you think, "Yeah, I'm like that," with no actual proof or training. 

This brings me to the term "alpha." I've been hearing it a lot lately. Usually, from some puffy-faced sleeveless guy who thinks going to the gym makes you a good leader. This meme is an excellent way for an alpha to lose its position, though: train a dog and lose your cool. The dog will often lose respect for you, no longer trust you, and you will no longer be the alpha. You'll be the pack member that gets them food and picks up their poop. Now think of how many stressed-out reactionary parents are just like this, and their kids run the show. 

A true alpha, protector, parent, and leader is not swept up in emotion or violence. A true alpha, a true warrior, makes decisions, not impulsive reactions. I am not above this behavior or feeling swept away in a rage-filled tantrum. Heck, I have almost ruined my life for way less. However, with one breath, you can go from reacting to responding, transforming fear into love.

My father was like this, and that's why I may have accidentally broken up my family.

One day, I heard my dad say he was going to wait outside of a man's job with a baseball bat and break his legs. I was 12 or 13 years old. So I then found out who this man was, pulled out the phonebook, and called that man's wife to tell her to tell him to watch out for my dad. I told her what kind of car he drove and told her to stay aware. Because I believed and trusted my old man, I was sure he would do what he said. 

That decision I made unfolded some horrible secrets about my family and was a big part of why my family broke up. However, I still had my father; he was still a free man and not in prison in his 70s with Parkinson's Disease. He also improved his life, getting proper health care, finding true love, and living his final years with the woman of his dreams by his side. Way better than going all "IG Meme" on a bitch and spending his last days in prison while his family struggled without him. That decision also helped my mom. She is now happy and thriving with more youth than most 20-year-olds. She has a beautiful life. She's even in a band with her fantastic husband. Seeing that my old man was going to ruin his life for his family placed me in a position to try and protect my protector. I went way above my maturity to try and make a potential disaster into some basic American dysfunctional yet manageable chaos. 

This also reminds me of Cain Valasquez in 2022

To protect his family, he shot into a car that had a person in there who molested one of his children. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't think that Cain was in the wrong, except for the courts. The man that he was shooting at was in a car with other people. So Cain's attempt to protect and enact sloppy revenge through monkey-like brutality ended up getting him put in jail for attempted murder and multiple gun assault charges. Imagine how much his family lost from their provider. They lost resources, time, emotion, money, and the resources they had left needed to be used to protect Cain, which took even more from the family he was trying to protect. Plus, their provider and protector was now gone and unable to provide or protect them anymore. 

I am not judging what Cain did; I could never imagine the overwhelming emotion and drive for revenge in that situation, but we should respect what he did by learning from it, not repeating it. We learn by mistakes, and pain is a great teacher. Sometimes, though, the pressure is too great, and explosions happen. The guilt of not being there to protect the ones we love can erupt into very cathartic displays of revenge, violence, and possession that can only result in scorching the earth. I have seen athletes train into being crippled just because of the guilt of not feeling good enough. I could not imagine the pain he was feeling, and my heart goes out to him and his family. 

Warrior practices like martial arts (not combat sports) train you to make emotionally intelligent decisions and create allies and abundant resources under stress. (In theory.) For some reason, our culture keeps throwing around terms like "warrior" and "alpha" to describe puffy, red-faced, rough-voiced, cigar-smoking, HGH-fueled emotional hair triggers that think being sleeveless with a truck and an AR-15 means you're a strategic decision maker. 

To be a "warrior" means understanding strategy, EQ, and decision-making. To be an "alpha" means making allies and sharing resources. To hold space, children react, monkeys react. Any great fighter knows that when you get the other person emotional, you can force and predict their reactions. 

Adults are usually more at risk than any at-risk youth I've ever worked with, and I have worked with thousands. I am not excluding myself from any of this critique. However, I am also deciding to point it out as an attempt to rise a little higher than saying blowhard, fearful, pompous sh!t like that meme above. So after the gym and the gun range, start journaling, meditating, and finding your Yin to balance your Yang. Acting like a wild card is an easy way to cripple your family, and in war, it is often good practice to injure instead of kill. That slows everyone down. 

Would you instead make the decision to...

• Teach your children that when they come to you with a very intense and terrifying situation, you will guide them with love to a place of solution and resolution.
• Or teach them that if they tell you something traumatic, then they will watch you fly off the handle and ruin your own life. So now, they can live with the memory of being abused and that speaking about it is why they lost a parent because life doesn't matter when it comes to their kid. That's selfish and ignorant, and if you genuinely are a courageous person who loves your children, then you will change this meme and your state of mind. However, if you catch someone in the act, destroy them and make it an event to remember, to send a message to all predators. 

Here... I made some tweaks.

Remember that kids often don't know the nuance of certain things adults say. We live in a complex social construct, and kids need to know how to thrive in that construct. So, to love a child is to teach a child. 

I have taught young people for decades and always let them know that the best gift they can give their parents is to demonstrate that when they are unsupervised, they are making good decisions and know how to get home safely. So we all should study and practice:

• Situational Awareness - The most helpful skill that gets better as you age. 
• Mindfulness - be aware of your habits and the signals you are putting out into the world
• Communication - With body and with words. Boundaries start here
• Self-defense - Learn to fall, manage stress and danger
• Journaling - You are telling a story, write it down, and learn that you can change it. 
• Martial arts - A complete system of wellness and longevity that turns harm into healing. As well as the skill to make conscious decisions while under stress.