Introduction

Why did I write this book, you ask?
We have all lived next to them, seen them in the grocery store, seen them on the playground… You know… the kids and parents that not only make your skin crawl but make you wish there was a vaccine to keep your children from being infected by their ideas and attitudes. Parents that think bullying is a part of life and helps toughen up kids, parents that believe that by allowing their children to listen to hard-core rap and violent, R-rated movies at the age of ten, they are helping their child to see the world as it really is. Well… I don’t live in the Matrix or in Jason’s world and neither do my kids. Too many times I have seen parents throw up their hands and ask, “What am I supposed to do?” or say, “I don’t know how to handle him/her,” or better yet, “I was raised this way and look how I turned out.” There’s a scary thought. The best one by far is: “It’s the world we live in. What are you going to do?”
      My answer… Change it!
      From a very early age, I always knew I was different—very bold and very outspoken, but also very different. Perhaps it was because I was the “picked on” kid who could not imagine ever treating someone that way; whose parents, though not demonstrative of affection, never advocated violence unless in self-defense; whose family ate dinner together; who viewed her mother as a geek for her strict approach to censoring television at that time but praises her now for it. Or perhaps it was just simply because I was born to be a “life’s reporter” with a story to tell and a lesson to teach someday. Whatever the reason, I have seen so much in this world of ours and in the children that will soon be taking over, that it makes me shudder at times. I am also saddened when I hear that people do not want to have children because of what the world is becoming; I want to shake them and scream, “But don’t you see… they will grow up to be who you raise them to be! Our world needs good kids to grow into good people!”
      I wrote this book because I want to show people that good kids do exist, and there is a recipe to produce them.
      I believe there is a reason for everything that occurs in one’s life. I believe that all experiences leave each and every one of us with stories to tell, not only to our children but to others as well… stories that can directly influence someone else’s life. I do not believe in crying over what was missed, but in pushing on to find out what incredible experiences still exist in life. It takes bucking the system at times, not being afraid to stand up and be counted, not being afraid to break cycles, and not being afraid to “be” that creates living examples for our children.
      I believe there is a great lack of respect in today’s children… lack of respect for each other, for elders, for life, and, most importantly, for themselves. The basic building block of respect that our kindergarten teachers tried to give us has to be strengthened and built up by parents, or we will continue to be confronted with headlines that have made me boycott buying the paper or turning on the news.
      I believe that the Creator entrusted me with very simple wisdom and very incredible children to pass on to the world as proof that good kids do exist—and are not hard to raise.
      My oldest, very-soon-to-be-teenage daughter came to me the other day, shortly after this book was done, my new store was opened, my husband and I had begun Kobi’s Korner (all within just a few short months) and said, “You know what, Mom? I watch everything you do and have accomplished, I remember everything we went through, and I watch how you are not afraid to do what’s right. You make me realize that there is nothing I can’t accomplish or become. You are way too cool. Thanks.”
      My ten-year-old daughter came to me recently and informed me that she wants to be just like me—not afraid to take on the world—and, of all things, has decided she wants to be a kindergarten teacher so that she can put the right ideas in kids’ minds from the beginning. She then said “thanks” for being me and teaching her how to be her.
      Every day when my first-grader son comes home from school, he runs through the house to find me just to yell out, “I love you, Mom” and thanks me for some little thing that I did, like rescue his favorite toy from the clutches of his younger brother.
      My reply is, “No… thank you for being my kids.” This is why I do what I do, why I have the boldness that I do, why I point out injustices, and will never stop spreading my “World’s Greatest Kids Recipe” throughout the world. For when it is my time to go, I know that my joyful thumbprint, no matter how small, will have been left on this planet and in the hearts and minds of my children—and perhaps yours as well—and that a recipe—a blueprint—was written and is now in your hands.

Mamma Maya’s Recipe for Great Kids
I am reminded of one of the most influential college professors in my life, Rev. Tolson. He redefined the words “strict” and “tough” for his students. He was a Baptist minister who was so crippled with arthritis, I did not know how he was able to move around and laugh the way he did, and genuinely care. He could make a drill sergeant look like a kitten. There were no excuses in his class.
      On the first day of class, “Mr. T”—as he liked to be called—always began with the same sentence: “Listen good, because I will not repeat myself again. If I say something twice, it is very important. Remember it. If I write it down, you had better write it down, because it will not be repeated and you will be tested on it. This is the last time I will repeat myself by saying, ‘I will not repeat myself again.’ There are no excuses in life and there will be none in my class. I expect your best—whatever that is—period.”
      Okay, parents, listen good, because I will not repeat myself again…
      In Mr. T’s class, three absences and you failed. If you were not there when the bell rang, too bad, because the door was locked. Period. You were expected to put out at 100% effort, and anything less than 200% earned you a C.
      I find that I pattern much of my parenting style and survival in this nutty world according to his teachings. I doubt that any of his students have ever forgotten his first-day lecture. One of his students actually wrote in to Reader’s Digest about this wonderful mentor for life. I doubt my children will ever forget my teachings of this wonderful man.
      He would go on about how he “taught in an all-girls school for 14 years and have seen every trick in the book, so don’t try a fast one because they don’t work.” Well, I don’t use that line in the house, but I can say that I have survived the “terrible twos” five times over and nothing they have tired has worked yet. Fast ones don’t work in our house. Every one of Mr. T’s lectures were filled with morals to every story, examples of how societies have crumbled because of a lack of respect, care, dignity, and honor. Underneath this man’s tough exterior was one of the kindest hearts I have ever met—one that believed in bending when it was necessary, as long as you did not make excuses and were the best person you could be.
      This is how I raise my family. This is how every parent should raise their children. For God’s sake, if you don’t care enough to be tough when necessary, do you think society is going to give these kids a break?
      I remember one girl in Mr. T’s class who made the biggest mistake you could possibly make. She was 24, was more than a little ticked off because she had gotten caught cheating on Mr. T’s exam, and had flung a few obscenities at him for good measure. After Mr. T asked her if she ate with that mouth, we never saw her in class again—or, for that matter, on campus again.
      And parents put up with this language from their kids, why? A nurse the other day asked my nine-year-old daughter if she ever gave us any lip like a lot of the kids in school do. This sage of wisdom replied that her mom doesn’t believe in hitting, but if she ever talked to us the way some of her friends talk to their parents, she would probably be holding her teeth. She’s been listening. Yeah! They can be taught!
      I had a long talk the other day with my daughter’s principal about the little darlings at her middle school who are suspended on a continuous basis for profanities, smoking, drugs, violence, and other non-childlike activities. These kids (ages 11-13) use words that must have just been invented. Her principle told me that when he calls their parents, the response he usually receives is, “That’s okay, he (or she) does that (or says that) to me all the time.” Hello! What is wrong with this picture? And when, where and from whom did they learn that this was okay? Perhaps when people decided that being a parent took up too much time? Perhaps when it was decided that children needed their freedom to express their true feelings? Well, that’s fine, I guess, but I would have been burping bubbles for a week if I had done that to my parents.
      Tough love doesn’t mean abuse, it means allowing a child to be a child and remembering your role as the parent. It means taking the adult burden off their shoulders of self-parenting, and letting them do the stupid things that kids do, not forgetting to remind them at times of how dumb it really was, and giving examples of your own lapses of intelligence as a kid. It means not being afraid to teach your kids from day one that there are certain words, actions, and deeds that are not then—nor will they every be—okay, and NOT relying on Ritalin to dull them into submission.
      Our two-and-a-half-year-old knows full well what “timeout” is and where the chair is. The last time he tried to whack his older brother, I looked at him and pointed to the chair. He went—granted, with much protest and probably the equivalent of unintelligible toddler profanities—but he went. He also quieted down when I told him to shush. When he tried to hit himself—I suppose to punish me for torturing him with timeout—I told him he was doing it wrong, that he had to rub his head and pat his tummy, and only then would he get it right. I then applauded for the great dramatic performance and told him he deserved an Emmy.
      Be creative. It works. At two and a half, lessons should be short, sweet, and to the point. Getting a giggle and then a hug out of him after the timeout torture chamber of a chair in a hallway void of all toys and other distractions, sends the message that, “I love you, but you will not get away with what you did. Period.” I wonder what some other two-year-old child’s mother would want to do if their child smacked him/herself in the head to punish her? Would she do what I did, which is the head-rub demonstration, say, “Now that was really dumb. Why are your hitting yourself—to hurt me? It doesn’t work that way,” and then laugh? It gets the point across. He soon will realize that hitting yourself is a really dumb thing to do and that it doesn’t work. Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot. Ritalin is the answer! I feel so dumb.
      But I digress from the recipe. I call it my recipe because nearly every time my children and I are out in public, or my entire family goes out to eat, we are stopped many times and told how good the kids are. We are asked if we have to threaten them, how can we have so many kids and be so young and look so happy, why my husband and I aren’t nuts yet, what the secret to our laughter is, and what the recipe for our great kids is. One man, as we were leaving a restaurant with all five in tow laughing from our toes up, told the waiter that he wanted what we had to eat if it would make him as happy as we were. Well, world, here it is… my treasured recipe for good kids, and ensuring that children stay children and grow into awesome people to be around. Enjoy!