The Promise of a Pencil (Chapters 1+2)

Mantra 1 WHY BE NORMAL

Mantra 1

WHY BE NORMAL

Although we never officially assigned the seats around our dinner table, we always knew our places on Friday nights. My dad sat at the head, with my brother and me to his right, my sister and my mom to his left. We usually had a few friends and extended family who joined too. Every week the cast of characters changed slightly, but the fervor of debate always remained the same. And more often than not, the heat came directly from the head of the table.

My father was known in my hometown as the intimidating dad. He coached and played nearly every sport with unmatched intensity: basketball, baseball, football-he dominated them all. He felt that kids in our town were coddled, and he would make sure they knew it: "Stop being such lily-white-bread pussies!" he'd scream at the twelve-year-olds on my basketball team. When he gave us praise, it was carefully delivered, and it meant something. He wanted us to earn it-through mental toughness and a tenacious work ethic. Because of this, most kids both loved and feared him. He was an old-school disciplinarian and didn't mind letting people know it.

As my siblings and I entered adolescence, he developed code words for us, which he would use to warn us that we were about to go over a line we did not want to cross. He'd use these code words in conversation, at the dinner table, or in public to say, "This is your last warning, do not push my buttons anymore." My older brother, Scott, is a typical firstborn son; he loved to challenge my dad's authority. His code word was Cream. Mine was Ice, and my younger sister, Liza, was Sundae. If we were all misbehaving, upsetting my mother and about to catch a spanking, my dad just had to yell "Ice Cream Sundae!" and we would stop right away. But as I look back on it, being the guy furiously screaming "Ice Cream Sundae!" probably didn't help to rid my father of his reputation among my friends of being "the scary dad."

Even back then, we knew his crazy temper and strict discipline were just forms of tough love. He wanted to get the best from each of us-and he got it. As a coach, no one pushed me harder. He had me play three games on the final day of the 14-Year-Old State Championships with a raging fever because he knew how badly I wanted to win the tournament. He'd set up cones in the basement so that after dinner I could do dribbling drills in the dark. But the result was worth it. And when I consider what motivated my siblings and me most, it all boiled down to one phrase that my dad used constantly that gave us the permission and the directive to stand out. He loved to remind us, "Brauns are different."

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My siblings and I knew that some of the parents in town rewarded their kids for good grades. This could mean up to $100 for an A, $75 for a B, $50 for a C, and so forth. When I asked my parents for some form of compensation for my academic performance, my request was shot down immediately.

"Paul Mazza just got one hundred and fifty dollars for good grades. Can I get something?" I'd ask.

"Brauns are different. You have our gratitude," they'd say.

During Hanukkah, rather than receiving eight nights of gifts, we received gifts on only four nights, and the alternate four nights we selected a charity that my parents donated to in our names. When we'd ask why half of our Hanukkah gifts were charitable donations instead of presents, my parents would simply respond, "Because Brauns are different."

Most of our friends had high-tech toys and video games, but my siblings and I were told to go read books or play outside. Our pleas and arguments were always met with the same response: "Brauns are different." My dad didn't think we were superior, he wanted us to hold ourselves to a higher standard.

This phrase was not only used to justify my mom and dad's different approach to parenting, but to celebrate us when we displayed courage by taking the path less traveled. If we stood up for a classmate who was being bullied, they would applaud us by saying, "You know why you did that? Because Brauns are different." Children want nothing more than their parents' approval, and pretty soon we developed an inherent drive to live into the ideals they had defined for us.