Historical Hurt and Fatherhood by Sam Ely II

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Tracy:
Welcome everybody to the Family Conference 2020, presented by Rambus University. The topic covered in this presentation is historical hurt and fatherhood. Our speaker is Mr. Sam Ely.

Tracy:
A little bit about Mr. Sam Ely. He is a counselor, MACP, and a group facilitator with La Mesa Counseling. He is counseling psychology graduate of Southern California seminary with an undergraduate degree and biblical studies. Mr. Ely is a husband, father and an ordained minister with the American Baptist Churches, USA. He has invested in fathers and family since 1994 as the San Diego area director of the Institute for Responsible Fatherhood and Family Revitalization.

Tracy:
In 2005, he founded Abba Father Family Services as not for profit in San Diego to service families from a biblical perspective. He has made presentations from one on one informal encounters to large formal forums in the local national media and internet on the importance and the vitality of fatherhood and the effects of fatherlessness. I am happy to welcome Mr. Sam Ely II.

Sam Ely II:
Wow, Tracy, Tracy. You missed your calling.

Tracy:
Thank you, Mr. Sam.

Sam Ely II:
Good afternoon. I guess it is afternoon. Yes, it is. Like they said, I’m Sam. My counseling degree came from Southern California Seminary, master’s of counseling in psychology. However, let’s see, a counseling degree will open some doors to allow you to practice some things in the legal aspect of it. The legal aspect of it. But I was counseling long before I had a degree. It’s not something that I aspired to. It was something that I recognized, and others have recognized about me, that I should aspire, to say it that way. It just happened.

Sam Ely II:
I’m very careful about what I say to people when I’m out and I try to limit my verbiage with people because it turns into a counseling session, literally, no matter where I am. In the grocery store, at a restaurant. Not so much since the COVID, but it has happened even with masks on. I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is. I ask somebody a question and they break down crying and start telling me all the stuff that I don’t want to hear. Literally, don’t want to hear. Way too much stuff that I don’t want to know. But it’s something that is about me that I don’t know where it comes from, or have no idea when it started. But it is, and I acknowledge that it is. It does happen. From little kids to senior citizens, it doesn’t matter. Male, female, it doesn’t matter.

Sam Ely II:
I counsel at La Mesa Counseling. I am one of the group facilitators there for domestic violence classes for men, primarily. Although I have done some of the women classes. I enjoy it to a fault. Sometimes it can be overwhelming, but I do enjoy it. It’s invigorating.

Sam Ely II:
I’m here today to talk to you about historical hurts and how that intertwines, intermeshes with fatherhood. I will say this, out of all the jobs I’ve had in my life, and my first job was at 13 and I’m well beyond 13 now. And most of the jobs I’ve had I’ve enjoyed, some I just tolerated. But the one that I enjoyed the most by far was being a father. From the time they were born, they popped into the world, to the time they went off on their own to go do what they were called and created to do. It was invigorating, challenging, all the adjectives you can come up with. It was all of that and then some. And if I can do it over again at 20 years old, I would. At this particular age, maybe not so much. It’s time for grandchildren. But I really enjoyed the whole raising kids, being part of their life and that sort of thing.

Sam Ely II:
Growing up without a dad, my mom and dad split up when I was about five years old, I didn’t know what was going on and no one ever explained it to me. I just know that he was there, my best friend in a whole world, and then he wasn’t. And I had no words for it. I dealt with a whole bunch of stuff in my life until I could put words to it, and that was well into my adult years.

Sam Ely II:
So I didn’t know, per se, what it would be like to be a dad, but I learned it from my children. Interesting, if you pay attention, your kids would teach you stuff. The standard notion is we’re here to teach them. Conversely, they’re here to teach us if you pay attention.

Sam Ely II:
Now, I can go on. I could go waxed eloquent for hours on fatherhood. That is very important to me. Not that mothers aren’t important, but I’ve never been a mother so I can’t talk a whole lot about being a mother. But I’ve been a dad and still am a dad, and I can talk to you about not having one, learning how to be one, and then connecting with my father when I was about 16 or so and that whole process. I can go on and on about that.

Sam Ely II:
But raising kids, children, boys or girls, is very important. Being present in their life is extremely important. The typical notion for a father in America is I provide for them what they need so I don’t need to be in the house. That’s only partially true. Yes, you do need to provide for them. You need to protect them. You need to instruct them. You need to guide them. You need to be an example for them. You need to love them and hug them and tell them how much you love them. All that is true. But the most important aspect of all of that is to be present, to be active in their life.

Sam Ely II:
I’ve got a little video to share if it’ll work, and I hope it does. There’s a political thing in the beginning of it, so I’m going to skip the politics part. Here we go.

Speaker 3:
My father was a child of his generation.

Speaker 4:
I remember he was around, but very absent.

Speaker 5:
He was around quite a bit.

Speaker 6:
He worked really, really hard for everything that he had.

Speaker 7:
He died when I was six months old.

Speaker 8:
He was one of those dads that didn’t express outwardly in words very much.

Speaker 9:
We never had a close relationship. Never did anything together specifically.

Speaker 10:
He did a lot of things right, but we didn’t realize it.

Speaker 3:
He was always a rock that we could always depend on in our household.

Speaker 7:
Growing up, I don’t know, there was like a void in my my life.

Speaker 5:
We would just throw the football back and forth. He would teach me how to throw a spiral. It’s one of my fondest memories.

Speaker 6:
He worked almost 80 hours a week for 15-odd years, so I didn’t really get to spend a whole lot of time with my dad.

Speaker 3:
I was always craving his approval.

Speaker 5:
I guess he’s not the most verbal person and he’s not the most social person.

Speaker 3:
He never said it, always thinking that, “Well, because I give you the necessities in life, you should know it by osmosis.”

Speaker 9:
My mother was primarily the one who gave me advice.

Speaker 4:
I remember actually one night watching him hit my mom, and that’s the last time that I really remember him being around.

Speaker 9:
When I was 12, I found out that I was the product of an affair.

Speaker 8:
My sense of person and who I was, was kind of ripped away from me.

Speaker 4:
I had, I guess, anger issues when I was younger.

Speaker 7:
I never had a father, so I just kind of had to figure stuff out on my own.

Speaker 4:
I didn’t realize until recently that was all rooted in my father being absent.

Speaker 9:
So I definitely believe it affected my ability to raise my children in that aspect.

Speaker 10:
When I had children, I really wanted to be a good dad.

Speaker 11:
I don’t think anybody has the manual on fatherhood or really what to do.

Speaker 7:
When my son was born, I just felt free.

Speaker 9:
I worked hard at not disappointing them, even though I did.

Speaker 11:
Luckily I had a very good example to follow. But so many times we get off track and we don’t follow that example.

Speaker 4:
I’m actually really excited to have kids so that I can fulfill that role.

Speaker 10:
We have a wonderful family where we’re really involved and communicate well with each other.

Speaker 7:
The strength lies with being transparent.

Speaker 8:
Be there, be honest, and be the type of person you would want your son to grow up to be.

Speaker 9:
It’s not always be a really great provider, but it’s really about spending time.

Speaker 6:
When you don’t feel like doing what they want to do, do it anyway.

Speaker 10:
Be creative and give them a challenge.

Speaker 8:
The biggest thing I take away is being there counts.

Speaker 12:
SoulPancake.

Sam Ely II:
Okay. As you can see, there’s no cookie cutter stamp or anything for being a dad because every person is different, needing something different from another person. I probably should touch on that a little bit later. But raising my kids, I realized that what worked for one didn’t necessarily work for the other, so it was up to me to be observant enough to recognize that. You make mistakes along the way, not recognizing it at a first. It’s like, “Why? Wait a minute.”

Sam Ely II:
I’ll give you an example. Sending my son to his room. One example I was telling you about, I was disciplining my kids for misbehaving. I would send my son to his room. It was torture. He was in agony. Even with games and all that kind of stuff to play in his room, video games and stuff. I would remove all that stuff and his cars and his planes and all that stuff, remove everything. Okay, you’re going your room. And it was torture for him.

Sam Ely II:
And my daughter, I said, “Oh, okay. Do the same thing for her.” Go to your room. I put the timer on for however long it was, go to your room. It was paradise. I just rewarded her for misbehaving because she’d just go in there and sit for hours, read books and whatever. She was in heaven. And I realized it was not punishment. So I sent her outside. I said, “Okay, you’re on punishment. You’re going outside.” “No. No, dad. Not outside. Not with all those kids.” She hated it.

Sam Ely II:
So punishment for him was to go to his room. Take him out of outside, take him away from his friends, put him in solitary. Solitary, she loved it. I had to make her go socialize. So just being in tune with that. Every person is different. If you got 5, 6, 7 kids, man, you’ve got your job worked out for you as to how to communicate with them, discipline them, how to show them love, how to listen to them. The old myth male and female, boys and girls. Totally different. You can’t treat them all the same.

Sam Ely II:
Now the danger in that is showing favoritism. There are stories, biblical stories, about one parent loving one over the other. That was true of, was it Jacob and Isaac? Or Isaac and Esau, Jacob and Esau? Whatever it was. With a bible degree I should know that stuff. If it’s not written down, I don’t know. I don’t remember stuff. But anyway, you can’t show favoritism. You can’t treat them all the same like everything applies to every one of them.

Sam Ely II:
A perfect example, and I don’t know if you guys remember in the raising… There used to be a group, a musical group called the Jackson Five. Michael Jackson was part of that family, and his five brothers, six brothers or whatever. It’s a bunch of them. They were disciplined very heavy handedly. When you interview them, some of the interviews I’ve seen, some of them thought it was necessary. They thought it was necessary. Michael thought it was horrible. His dad was a monster because dad treated all of them the same. I’m going to whip you, I’m going to whip all of you. I’m going to discipline you, I’m going to discipline all of you. You have to be able to tweak it to each individual one. Not showing favoritism, but applying what the person needs, when they need it, the way they need it. And parents don’t always get that.

Sam Ely II:
Now, as far as historical hurts go, now we live in a country that has some dirty baggage. Some secrets. Never keep secrets from your kids. Somehow I’m going to tie in the country stuff, national stuff, with raising a family. When you have children, generationally speaking, most people live their life as kids and they take what they learn as children and take it into their adulthood, and they pass it on to their kids.

Sam Ely II:
So generationally speaking, I heard a story once about a lady who had a Thanksgiving roast, and she sliced off one end and she sliced off the other end, and she put it in the oven. And her husband says, “Why do you do that?” And she says, “Well, my mother taught me how to do that.” So they asked the mother on a subsequent holiday, “Why do we cut the ends off the roast?” And the mother said, “Well, I learned it from my mother.” So they go to grandma or great grandma and say, “Why do we cut the ends off the roast before we put it in the oven?” And she said, “Well, when I first got married my husband bought me this oven, and it was really small. So to get the roast to fit, I had to slice the edges off.”

Sam Ely II:
Even though they have a more modern oven that everything fits in there, they’re still in the practice of cutting off the edges because they learned it from the previous generation who learned it from the previous generation when it was a necessity. So now we’re doing things now because other people did them and it’s no longer necessary, but we are doing them because other people did them, and it no longer applies.

Sam Ely II:
A lot of that applies to raising children. We typically raised them the way we were raised. Some of it applies, but a lot of it doesn’t. Especially today, we live in a very digital society with people on social media and all that kind of stuff. Right now we’re having a family conference, but we’re not in the same place. So having a conference in a room when I’m standing up addressing people, which I’ve done many, many times, but online, this is the first time. So the stuff I used to apply then for the room gathering and meeting people and getting to know people and shaking hands and all that kind of stuff, it doesn’t apply anymore. Good or bad, it just doesn’t.

Sam Ely II:
So there are some things that we learned as kids and our parents instilled in us, most of which applies, but there are some very practical things that no longer apply. One of them is, like in the video we just saw, some of the guys were saying how their father was a provider but he wasn’t present. Well, providing for your kids is good, but being present is even better. Could you hear some of the fathers who were in the video saying they wish their dads had been present? How would your life be different if your dad had been present?

Sam Ely II:
I can tell you now when my mom and dad split up when I was five years old, and I reconnected with him nine years later, my life would’ve been very different in those nine years had I had regular daily contact with my father. There are some things my father knew and learned and could pass onto me that I am lacking because I didn’t get it. He wasn’t there to give it to me, I didn’t get it.

Sam Ely II:
Now, as a father, I learned a lot of stuff from my children. Kids tell you what they need. When they cry a certain way, if you’re in tune, you know this cry means this, this cry means this, this cry means that. When they cry about their diaper change and you’re trying to feed them, you missed it. So you got to know what cry means what, and then you apply to that. You apply yourself to meet that need.

Sam Ely II:
Now, when they get a little older, they no longer need a bottle, they no longer need a diaper change, so I can’t continue to do those things. I have to do stuff that they need. My kids are to the point now where they need cars and they need money and they need an encouraging note from their father, and I need to do that. Trying to deal with them in the way they used to be ain’t going to work.

Sam Ely II:
Now as a nation on a larger scale, not just in your household, but as a nation, our country started very good in some aspects, and very bad in some others. I’m trying not to be very political here. There are certain hurts that happen historically in this country. Let me tell you this and how it applies. There’s a tool that we use in counseling called a genogram. It’s called genogram, as in genealogy and telegram. You put them together, you got genogram. And a genogram outlines your family history back three or four of generations. So in order to do a genogram for the client, we need to investigate the client’s history three or four generations.

Sam Ely II:
Now, I don’t know it, so I got to get it from the client. In most cases, the client doesn’t know it. So then they got to go do some research with their family. What I get constantly is when they come back to see me after they started working on their genogram, the first generation is easy to get. Second, third, sometimes not so not so easy because there’s a lot of stuff people don’t want to talk about. It’s dead, it’s water under the bridge, bones in the closet, stuff over there. We don’t want to talk about it. But in order to be a successful, healthy, next generation, we need to talk about those things.

Sam Ely II:
If two generations ago somebody died of a heart attack, high cholesterol, smoking too much or whatever, and then the subsequent generation the same thing happens, don’t you think I need to know about that if I smoke? Well, I’ll answer for you. Yeah. If there’s a health issue three or four generations ago and I’m feeling the same thing, one of the first things a physician will ask you when you go to a doctor, is there a family history of X, Y, Z. High blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, stroke, that kind of stuff. In most cases in my family, I have to say, “I don’t know.” So I had to go looking and find out. And I found out there are some tendencies, so I need to, as a cognizant, intelligent person, not live the kind of lifestyle that’s going to help me do the same thing that they did.

Sam Ely II:
The same thing applies in families as far as behavior, as far as child abuse, as far as promiscuity, as far as absent fathers or drug addicted mothers, any number of things. If there’s a tendency, the current generation needs to know about it so they don’t repeat it if they don’t want to. They can choose to repeat it, but at least they’re doing it knowing about it and not doing it unknowingly.

Sam Ely II:
Yeah, so as a nation, we, as a country, have some stuff in our closet and we have stuff in our family closet. We have stuff that nobody wants to talk about. Nobody wants to talk about. Don’t talk about it, don’t bring it up. I went asking my family my personal history. I went asking my family about who was born to whom and who’s related to whom because people kept showing up claiming to be my cousins, and I don’t know who they were. I thought I knew who all my aunts and uncle were on my father’s side and my mother’s side. And then these people kept showing up at family reunions and picnics and stuff who I didn’t know who they were. I was supposed to call them aunt somebody. How was that my aunt? And they didn’t want to talk about it. Nobody wanted talk about it. Then my grandmother finally pulled me aside and started telling me, “Well, your grandfather was like this, and he did this and he did that.”

Sam Ely II:
Well, that’d been nice to know because that means I have that same tendency, or my brothers, or some of my cousins on the same generation. Things get passed on generationally whether you know it or not. You end up repeating stuff that previous generations did, like lopping off the edges of the roast and putting it in a oven where you don’t need to lop it off, but you’re lopping it off because they lopped it off and you don’t know why you’re cutting it off. Then when you start asking questions, now you’re going to ruffle some feathers and people will say, “Why do you want to talk about that? Why are you waking up dead dogs? Let them sleep. Why are you in the closet messing with those bones? Leave those bones in there.” You got to deal with it or repeat it. So if you deal with it, you don’t have to repeat it, but if you don’t deal with it, you’re going to repeat it.

Sam Ely II:
We live in a country where at one point the absentee fatherlessness was combined to just certain neighborhoods, certain communities, primarily African American, Black communities, primarily. There was other communities, but largely Black communities. But now, because we didn’t address it as a nation, as a community, now it is spilled over into other communities because we’re not isolated. Everybody’s connected some kind of way. If we don’t nip it in the bud over here, we’re going to deal with it over there. So now other community of these are dealing with absentee fathers, they call it fatherlessness.

Sam Ely II:
When the guys I used to work for coined that phrase back in the 80s I think it was, early 80s, and we’re dealing with it now because we didn’t deal with it then. There are other things we’re dealing with now because we didn’t deal with it then. A lot of stuff, and I don’t want to go into all of it. Some of it you see on the news these days with protests and all that kind of stuff. There was stuff that if we had dealt with it properly the first time, we wouldn’t be dealing with it now.

Sam Ely II:
One is keeping secrets. Keeping secrets from the family is a cardinal sin because secrets don’t stay secrets very long. Playing favorites with your children will backfire on you sooner or later, probably later when the kids get a little older with their resentment and hatred and competition and all that kind of stuff later. But you deal with it properly the first time, you don’t have to deal with it later.

Sam Ely II:
So telling them to truth is very important to your kids. You don’t tell a five-year-old adult type secrets and truths, but you tailor it to their needs, to their level. And then you give it to them and you ask them, “Does that makes sense?” And they tell you whatever. It’s okay. Yeah, they got it. As they get a little older, you tell them a little more, as they get a little older, you tell them a little more. As they get, say, teenagers or 18 and beyond, you can tell them more directly some of the secrets that they need to know. But above all, tell them about their health issues, family health issues. Tell them where your family comes from. Tell them where you come from. If you don’t know, find out, because it’s going to play a part in who they are and who they think they are and what they think of themselves.

Sam Ely II:
It’s amazing the number of people I have in my counseling sessions who have very low self-esteem or low opinion of themselves. That should come from a healthy family environment growing up. It should come from. In the absence of that, some people are adopted and all that kind. And people, like you heard the guy in the video, his father died when he was like six years old or eight years old or something like that. There are still things you can do in those kind of situations to raise a happy, well adjusted child. But you there’s some things you need to know.

Sam Ely II:
For example, I had a client I was working with years ago who had two sons. Two sons, and the first son’s father died. She remarried, so she had a second son. The second son, father and the mother didn’t get along, so they split up. She didn’t get along with and she had a low opinion of the second father. So the kids grew up and the first son was well adjusted, well adapted, very sure of himself. The second one, not so much. And that’s why they came to see me as a counselor because the second one, not so much.

Sam Ely II:
Come to find out that the mother, even though she’s by herself with no man around, so the father’s absent, the older boy got positive feedback about his dad from his mom. Your dad was in the army, he was a hero, he was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and he died. So there was a picture of him there in his uniform and she always said good things about that kid’s dad.

Sam Ely II:
The second kid’s dad she didn’t get along with, so she always had not so good things to say about the second kid’s father. And the second kid lived like it. He lived like a defeated individual after years of hearing his mother say negative stuff about his dad. Hearing positive stuff about the other kid’s father, who was in the same household with him, but hearing negative stuff about his own dad.

Sam Ely II:
Kids internalize and want to live up to be like their dad. They want to idolize them and lift their dad up on the pedestal. My dad. You hear kids on the playground all time. “Yeah, my dad can whoop your dad. My dad could beat your dad. My dad is better than your dad.” They compare their fathers. So imagine not having a high esteem or high view of your father, how that would affect you.

Sam Ely II:
So I had to work with this kid about the positives. First of all with the mother, and then with the kid about saying positive stuff about this kid’s father to lift this kid’s self-esteem. The kid was beginning to go into teenage years, and for kids with low self-esteem in their teenage years, it could be very dangerous. There’s a lot of stuff out there tempting like drugs and gangs and violence and crime and all that kind of stuff.

Sam Ely II:
The older kid likely was never experiencing that because they had a good self-esteem view of himself based on what he heard his mom say about his dad, even though he didn’t know his dad. And the second kid, likewise. He knew his dad based on what his mother said. Mother painted the picture and the kid was going to be just like his no good, no account, low down dad who’s absent. So it’s very important that you say good stuff about your kid’s parent, you or the other parent, even if that parent is not around raising good and healthy children even when the other parent isn’t there.

Sam Ely II:
Now, because sometimes, all the time, the only person you can control is yourself. You can’t control the other parent. So what ever the other parent is doing, it’s up to the responsible one to instill good things into the kids even though the irresponsible, they less than responsible parent isn’t. Which involves telling them the truth, hugging them, telling them how much you love them, how much you admire them, how smart they are, how good they are in sports, how good they are at mathematics, how good they are and whatever data they do. They are good. And not just good, they are great. They just are. They just are. You reinforce that.

Sam Ely II:
We can tell them how bad they are and they’ll live up to it, or we can tell them how good they are and they’ll live up to that too. So would you rather live up to the good stuff or the bad stuff? I choose the good stuff so I always told my kids good stuff about themselves and about their mom and about other family members. And they are well adjusted. I think they think a little too highly of themselves sometimes. But I’d rather they do that than to think negative of themselves. So they’ll go out and conquer the world and be very successful adults, and they’re in the process of doing that right now.

Sam Ely II:
As we are the molder of our children, we are. Now that doesn’t negate the fact that they’ll make choices, even choices that we suggest that they don’t make. However, being a good example before them gives them the tools to do some of the same stuff that we’ve been doing. It doesn’t work to say, “Do what I say, not what I do,” because they are going to do what you do. They are definitely going to do what you do because you are the first teacher, and being the first teacher they’re going to do what you do. That’s just how life works. That’s just the way it is.

Sam Ely II:
Now, there are some things, for instance, I was frustrated by kids about something and I remember yelling something and I don’t remember exactly what it was. But when I said it, I had this instant memory that I said when I was five, six, seven years old. When I get to have kids, I’m never going to say that. I’m never going to say that to my kids. I remember saying something in the heat of the moment, something, and then the little voice in my head says, “You said you were never going to say that.” I turned a look to see where that voice came from. Why did I just say what I said I wasn’t going to say.

Sam Ely II:
You are your parents. You are your parents. Like it or not, good or bad, you are your parents. Now the choice is, do you want to be just like them and that’s good, or do you want to work to not be like them? But you’ve got to be aware of who they are and what part of that is in you. Probably all of it’s in you. You are your parents. There’s no way around it because they are your first teacher. Now you can learn other things from other people after your parent, but your parents are your first teacher. Whether they were there or not, they still are your first teacher. They taught you not to be there if they weren’t there. They taught you how to be detached if they were detached. They taught you how to fight and argue and scream at each other if that’s what they did. Now, you can work not to do those things, but you’ve been taught to do those things.

Sam Ely II:
I learned how to drive from my father. He taught me how to drive. I drive just like him, probably a little better because I drive more than he does and I drive professionally sometimes and he never did. But he was my first teacher. He’s a fast driver and I do the same thing. I look more like my mother, but I act like my dad. I wish I could ask you some questions, but I guess I’ll get to that. What are we doing on time, Tracy?

Tracy:

[inaudible 00:34:01]

seven minutes to the 45 minute mark.

Sam Ely II:
Okay. Thank you.

Tracy:
There are some questions, by the way.

Sam Ely II:
Okay. I heard from my great aunts, who would’ve been my great grandfather’s children, my grandmother’s brother’s and sisters, that my great grandfather was a righteous man. Read his bible, was in church all the time, participated in church. He fed people, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas time in the town that I grew up in and was born in. He would go out on Thanksgiving, and he always bought station wagons for this so he could do this. He would go around the community on holidays and pick up soldiers and sailors who were in town and he would take them home and have dinner with the family. They would say, “I remember daddy used to bring home these sailors and these soldiers. They would eat the good food and we would get what was left.” Stuff like that.

Sam Ely II:
So my aunts would tell me stuff like that, and I’ve done the same thing. I’ve done the same thing. Feeding people, helping people, driving people. Like I said, I drove commercially for a while. Driving people around, picking people up, looking for people who are hurting, helping them, all that kind of stuff. Now I never saw my great-grandfather do those things, but growing up I heard stories about it.

Sam Ely II:
And then when I reflect on it as an adult, it’s like, “Wait a minute. I’ve been doing the same thing.” And I imagine I’m not the only ones. Some of my cousins and my brothers were doing the same thing. Had I grown up in a household of people who have a history and repeated history of going to prison, which I didn’t, anybody in my family that I know of have gone to prison, or even gone to jail for that matter. But I do know some people have worked with some people. When you do their genogram, when you start walking their family history, generation after generation after generation, people who’ve been to prison. It’s like a family pattern. So family patterns get passed on oftentimes, sometimes, whether we know it or not.

Sam Ely II:
You are your family. Now, being aware of it is good. That way you can make some adjustments for what you want to do, what you want to pass on, but you don’t want to pass on. But if you don’t know, man, you can by default pass it on to somebody else. You don’t necessarily want that.

Sam Ely II:
Tell your people the truth. My grandmother and her sisters on both sides of the family were very good about telling me the truth, even when it was uncomfortable. I asked them a question and they’ll say, “Well, son, have a seat. We’re going to talk about your grandfather. We’re going to talk about your great-grandfather. We’re going to talk about stuff,” and they would tell me the truth. Where other people were lying or didn’t want to talk about it, omitting things, they would tell me the truth. To me that was very important.

Sam Ely II:
I’ve always told my children the truth. I try to give it to them on their level, where they can handle it. I’ve tried to always tell them the truth so somebody can’t come along and tell them, “Well, your dad didn’t tell you the truth.”

Sam Ely II:
And I always try to be dependable for my children. I’m not bragging. I’ll tell you a story. My dad was sick once and he lived in Mississippi. He had left Ohio where I was born and he moved to Mississippi, bought some land, retired, moved to Mississippi. He was sick so I went to see him. I drove. A couple weeks after that, my daughter was supposed to be in Berkeley for orientation at UC Berkeley, and I was in Mississippi. So my daughter’s mother calls me and she says, “Well, Sam, she needs to be in Berkeley on Sunday. Are you going to make it back?” And I say, “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

Sam Ely II:
So she tells my daughter, “Well, your dad said he is going to be here, but he might not make it.” She may have been just preparing her for just in case I had a flat tire or car break down or something. But historically she has a history of people letting her down in her family, so she didn’t hold high hopes of me getting back to go to Berkeley. When I got back, and I did, and I went and took a shower, took a nap, got some gas, got my oil chained, went and picked my daughter up and took her to Berkeley.

Sam Ely II:
On the way up there, they were telling me that. She said, “Sam,” she said, “I kept telling…” My daughter’s name is Sunday, like first day of the week, Sunday. She says, “I kept telling Sunday that you might not make it. You might not make it. And she told me, no, you’ll be here. No, he’ll be here. Every time I told her that you might not make it, she said, no, he’ll be here.” And she said, “I asked her why do you say that?” She said she had her fingers up like this. “He was here for this, he was here for that. He was here for this, he was here for that. He was here for this, he was here for that.” She went through all 10 of her fingers and started doing a second row like number 11, number 12.

Sam Ely II:
I’m sitting there tearing up thinking, “Yeah, you’re right. I was there for all that stuff when I had opportunity not to be.” Now, my dad wasn’t. And my wife, former wife now, wasn’t. Her father wasn’t. But I learned to be faithful to my children. If you’re faithful to your children, they will come to believe that. They don’t know anything other than that. So the things you are raised up in are the things that you believe because that’s what you know. So you ought to give your kids the best of what you know. Be there for them, invest in them, time, talent, your treasure. Invest in your kids.

Sam Ely II:
Like I said, the fatherhood experience growing up, raising kids was great for me, man. I thought it was outstanding. I had the luxury of being able to change my schedule during my working career, working stuff, so I can work nights so I could be home during the day so I can hang out with my kids. I was at their school almost every day. I volunteered for field trips. I volunteered for this, that and the other. That’s when my daughter got that thing. Well, he’ll be here. He was here. He was here. He was here. He will be here.

Sam Ely II:
I drove up and I said, “Okay, you guys ready to go?” And they said, “You made it.” Yeah, I told you I was going to be here, I’m going to be here. Keep your word. Your children learn to lie from you. Kids are born kind of wicked. They lie because you say, “Who was in the cookie jar?” And they got crumbs all over their mouth. They’ll say, “It wasn’t me.” So they do know how to lie like that. But they perfect it based on what they learn from you. So if you keep your word with them, they don’t lie. If you keep saying you’re going to be there on Saturday to take them fishing and you don’t show up, they learn to lie because you just lied to them. You lied to them. If you’re not going to make it tell them, “I’m not going to make it.”

Sam Ely II:
We’re supposed to go to the music park to this weekend, but daddy had to work. That’s okay once or twice, but if you have to work all the time then you’re teaching your kids to lie. You got to keep your word to your children. It’s good to keep your word to everybody, but if you don’t keep your word to nobody, keep your word to your children because they will learn from you whether you are a truthful person or not, and if it’s okay for them to do likewise. Keep your word to your kids.

Sam Ely II:
Tell them how great they are. Say positives to them. If they never hear stuff positive from you, they’re going to hear it from somebody else and their ears is going to be turned to that somebody else. Believe me. I raised my daughter, particularly.

Sam Ely II:
Let me tell you another story. One minute? Two minute? Okay. My daughter was at Berkeley. She got into Berkeley, she was at Berkeley, and she went to a party her first couple of weeks there. She went to a party and there were some kids there from San Diego, football players who were being recruited to play at Cal. She saw them at the party and my daughter said she walked up to this one guy and she says, “Hey, what you doing here?” And he was telling the story about how he’s there being recruited for football.

Sam Ely II:
She said the guy looked around around, like looking around her. And she said, “What you looking for?” He said, “I’m looking for your daddy. Your father’s always around.” She said she was embarrassed by that. And I told her when she told me the story, I said, “Good. They understand that you, young lady, have a father who cares about you. And he cares enough to go do them bodily harm if they don’t behave themselves.”

Sam Ely II:
Be active in your kid’s life as much as possible. Not like helicopter parent where your kid can’t do no wrong, but just be around, be present. Be present, not just that your kid know, that other people know too. I probably should stop right there. How about that, Tracy?

Tracy:
Thank you Mr. Sam Ely. Wonderful presentation. We are at the 45 minute mark, but if anybody does have questions, you can unmute yourself and ask Sam personally. Sam, how could they get in touch? By contacting LA Mesa counseling if they’re interested?

Sam Ely II:
Yep. Call La Mesa Counseling, whatever the phone number is. I should have it here somewhere.

Tracy:
So if anyone is interested in doing counseling with Dr. Sam Ely, they can. And I can give you the number right now.

Sam Ely II:
Yes. I like what I do so much that it’s a challenge to not do it. I need to not do it sometimes just to stay sane and to spend time with my wife and to do things that I like to do and not get burnt out out. It’s a delicate balance, but I really do enjoy what I’m doing. I realize that I’m not going to get rich doing it, but I feel great doing it. Feeling great for doing work accounts for something.

Tracy:
Sam has quite a following at La Mesa Counseling. Our number is 619-463-9742. That’s 619-463-9742. So thank you, Sam. Wonderful presentation.

Sam Ely II:
You are quite welcome.

Tracy:
Okay. And thank you everybody for joining our family conference. We hope you have gained new insights and tools that you can use. We will keep you informed of our upcoming events. Rambus, you can check it out on our website, gorambus.com for more information. For those interested in seeing a counselor for consultation, please click the link in your email for that opportunity. Again, thank you for being a part of our Family Conference 2020, and we look forward to seeing you next year. Thank you.

Sam Ely II:
Hopefully we can do it in person next year. Thanks, Tracy.

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