Today’s Pioneer Press has a story about recent Minnesota politicians and the unwelcome news generated by their family members. Its prompted by Mike Hatch’s daughters and their scrapes with the law. Since he is our Attorney General, and the DFL Gubenatorial candidate, his full press offensive to stop the Strib from asking questions about them has become a story in itself.
I suspect that this is one of the most common reasons why good candidates shrink from running for office. When I was on the Duluth School Board I had kids in the schools. I recall one principal telling me how a fellow board member’s son had swung from a pipe fixture at his school and broken it causing a minor flood. It was a humorous story and never made it to the press and shortly thereafter the son transferred to a local private school. I was grateful that it was another Board member’s child and not my own being commented on.
My daughter was never going to be a problem. She’s strong willed but she’s always played by the book. My son hated school, skipped it on occasions when he deemed it irrelevent to his life, and started a major food fight on his last day of junior high.
I raised my son to believe, as I do, that you have to live with the consequences of the actions you take. Fortunately, my son, in his contrarian way, seems to have adopted this attitude himself. As for me the Father, like my Father before me, I’ve always trusted in trust. I’ve always extended my children pretty long ropes to hang themselves with and crossed my fingers that they wouldn’t get their necks stretched. So far so good.
