Dad, Tell Me About the Time (59)

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

What is the worst thing about living without the kids?

I’m always working on different projects around the house, but two things are making these projects more difficult. One, I’m getting older and I’m not as strong as I used to be, so it is difficult to lift heavy objects and two, I used to always have a strong child around to help me lift heavy and awkward objects. Lisa does what she can to help, but she isn’t as strong as a teenage boy.

On a more serious note, I really miss being an intimate part of my kids’ lives. 

If you could go back in time and do something differently, what would it be?

There are many things I’d do differently if I were able to go back to my teenage years, but I assume this is asking about my child rearing years. I think I’ll answer both questions.

If I were able to go back to being twelve years old, knowing what I know now, I’d be much more social. I’d try and get involved in more things outside my own little world and I would try and make more friends outside my comfort zone. Both male and female.

I have very few regrets about my life after I met Lisa, but I would definitely try and be more patient, I’d get less worked up about things that don’t really matter, and I’d try better at not getting drawn into an argument.

Outside of my family life, I’d probably make a career change when I was let go from Kyocera. I went back to Hi-Z because it was easy, it was less disruptive to my family, and I did still hold out hope that I could make it a financial success. Knowing what I know now, I think I may have tried to get a job with an aerospace company. That would have been fun.

Even as I say that though, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I felt inspired by the spirit to make the choices I made, and I love my life as it is. I love my work, and it would have been tough on the kids to pack them up and move while they were in high school. 

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (58)

Monday, June 23, 2025

Now that your kids are grown, what is a typical day like for you?

Compared to life with children at home, life as an empty nester is boring. That is a double-edged sword because sometimes it is wonderful to not have to worry about homework, school sports, bedtimes, are your kids ready for what lies ahead of them, are they choosing good friends, and a hundred other things that occupy your time and thoughts.

But at the same time, you miss them! You miss them a lot, and you still worry about them but now there is nothing you can do about their choices and little you can do to help them. Of course, you still support them, you celebrate their successes and mourn with them over their failures or when they face what seems like insurmountable challenges. You try and be with them when they need you, but that isn’t always possible.

Even still, there is nothing like the freedom of an empty nester. Lisa and I spontaneously saying, let’s go to a movie tonight, but it’s a school night you think, and then you remember, who cares?

Or Lisa comes to me and says, I signed us up for a dance class. You think, do we have time for that and you answer yourself and say, yes, I do.

How is it different from when you were younger?

See the above response.

What is the best part of being an empty nester?

Planning a life for two people is so much easier than planning a life for eight. When we go to an amusement park we only need to buy two tickets and we go on the rides we want to, we don’t need to worry about anyone else.

Dinner for two is so much more affordable than dinner for eight plus I now get senior discounts. I get to focus on my wife and my meal and I don’t have to worry about whether my kids are eating or not or if they’re fighting or making too much noise.

If we need to travel to a far-off city we will often fly because two tickets are cheaper than the gas to drive a car there.

What is something you would like to do now that the kids are grown?

I love my work, and I love designing and building things. Fortunately, I’m still doing that, but unfortunately, I’m not in a situation financially where I can officially retire. I would love to just continue doing what I’m doing but without the financial pressure to be successful. It would be great to just put my work on hold and go visit the kids for a week or two.

When I’m not working in my shop, I love working in my garden. I would like to spend more time in my garden. While I don’t care to travel as much as Lisa does, she really wants to travel, and I love to be with her so I expect we will be going on a lot more trips. Lisa really wants to do some genealogy trips to Scotland, Ireland, Denmark etc. I want to see those places as well, but I would also like to throw in some sandy beaches and sun. I’d like to go to Israel as well but I think we’ll put that trip on hold for a bit.

What did you love about having children in your home?

When a child is first born, they are so sweet and cuddly, and you can’t help but love them. The joy of a beautiful creation so recently with God more than compensates for sleepless nights and dirty diapers.

Once that child is old enough to have a mind of its own, and is capable of doing damage to itself and its surroundings, but still too young to have a meaningful discussion about things, then they are not fun to be around. That happens around two years old.

Once you can have a conversation with the child, and can reason with them, then they are fun again. That happens somewhere between three and four. Now you can explain to them that if you yell for them to stop, it is because they are in danger, like running into a busy street. If you tell them to stay with you in a busy store, it is because you don’t want them to get lost. If they do get lost, they are old enough to be scared and they now understand why you asked them to stay close.

At this point, they are a joy in your life because you can start to see into their minds, and you can see their personalities. I love how their personalities differ widely from child to child, you can see their strengths and you can help them shore up their weaknesses.

They are a joy to you and as they get older, your discussions with them become more meaningful and your love and bond grows to the point that you are almost bursting with joy.

I think this joy peaks when they reach their early teens. At this point, if you have managed to create a strong bond and trust.

They continue to communicate with you, and you can still see them grow and mature but at the same time they begin to have enough confidence that they start making their own decisions. They have always made their own decisions but now their confidence is strong enough that they will often choose to ignore what they know that you want them to do and do what they want to do. You can still discuss their choices, and if you see real danger in what they want to do you can often override their choices, but usually you have to let them make choices you disagree with.

Usually these are harmless choices and are only a matter of opinion. Sometimes their choices are going to hurt them, but only in a temporary way, and the consequences of bad decision are a part of them growing. Sometimes their choices are going to cause permanent harm, and they will choose to make that wrong choice no matter what you do.

That is painful and hurts you as much or more than it hurts them. If you’re lucky, they can see the harm they did to themselves and come back to you. If you’re not lucky, they will sometimes head down a path of self-destruction and they will miss out on much joy and will sometimes face a lot of pain and misery.

While all of my children have made decisions that hurt them, I am so grateful that all of them have chosen a path that continues to bring them and me great joy.

I guess to answer the question. What I love most about having children in my home are our long discussions, often late into the night. While I still have those discussions, it just isn’t the same over a telephone. 

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (57)

Thursday, June 19, 2025

What advice would you give your children?

Don’t make any decision while you are scared or angry. Always sleep on any major decision before you make the decision.

What is the craziest thing one of your kids ever did?

This is a tough one. I don’t think my memory is good enough for this. While it may not be a “crazy” thing, I’ll try and think of something significant and out of the ordinary that each kid did.

Kira moved to Arizona.
Brandon went to court for the first time alone, without a mentor or advisor.
Ben bought chickens
Alycia coached high school lacrosse
Alex moved to Germany
Sarah quit her job and asked a dentist to hire her with no training

How has being a parent changed you?

Being a parent has changed me in every way possible. I am…

•   More patient                              •   Kinder
•   Gentler                                       •   Baldness
•   Think of others first                   •   More gray hair
•   Less selfish                                •   More charitable
•   More of a peacemaker               •   A greater love for kids

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (56)

Wednesday, June 187, 2025

How are chores divided between males and females in your family?

We didn’t divide chores based on gender. We had a job chart, and it rotated every week. We didn’t care when they did their job, but it had to be done by Saturday. Weekdays were busy with sports and practices so the kids usually waited to do their jobs on the weekend, but they quickly figured out that if they wanted to hang out with friends on the weekend, they had to get their jobs done early. I can’t remember what exactly was on the job chart but cleaning their rooms would have been on every kid’s list. They would have rotated between cleaning bathrooms, family room, kitchen etc. 

What are some thoughtful things your kids have done for you over the years?

When they lived at home, the kids would often give us nice home-made cards with their heartfelt thank-you’s in them. Not so much as adults, but we still get cards from some of the kids. Every once in a while, they will come together and do something amazing like the photo album I described on Monday, September 16, 2024, and posted in my blog on September 18, 2024.

They have done other random things as well, like

    -    take us on cruises
    -     helped out on trips to Europe and Canada
    -     giving us old cars
    -     flown out to be with me during difficult times or to help with jobs that are too big for me to handle by myself
    -     I love how we are always included in fun activities like running races and floating down rivers.
    -     We also know that we are always welcome in their homes.

The one thing that all the kids do (some more than others) is to call us regularly to just chat. That is probably more meaningful than anything.

How did you teach your children what is essential in life?

I’m not sure how to answer this. I don’t think I ever sat them down and taught them this lesson. I guess I probably did it more like my dad did. Through example and random comments when we’re together. I would say things like:

“If you love what you do for a career then you will never work a day in your life.”

“No one ever said on their death bed that they wished they had spent more time at the office”.

“The only thing you can take with you to the next life are your relationships with other people”.

“The only organization from our mortal lives that will exist in the next life are our families”.

I think some of this got through.

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (55)

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

What child is most like you? In what way?

Let me talk about this with each child.

Kira, while I love Kira dearly, we are about as opposite as we could be. She is a highly talented artist, I am not. I am great at technology, she is not. She is good with people, I am not. I am good with numbers, she is not.

Brandon and I have a lot in common, we both love technology, we both love to read and stay current with the latest in technology and we love to contemplate what we would do if we were in charge. We have plans to save the world, and we have plans to destroy the world.

Ben and I are also about as opposite as we could be. He loves sports, I have little interest in sports. He isn’t too into technology while that is kind of my life. He is calm and soft spoken while I tend to just blurt out what is on my mind.

Alycia and I have a lot in common. We both have opinions on just about everything and we are happy to express them. We will also contemplate what we would do if we were in charge, but we tend to focus on laws more than technology. Alycia and I share oddly similar tastes in food. Not just a few types of food but just about all foods.

Alex and I are an odd mixture. On things like sports, we have little in common, but he loves fantasy and science fiction just as much as I do. I do know that Alex has cultured a desire to enjoy many of my interests because he saw early on that we had few natural common interests, and he wanted to have more in common with me. What a mature desire at a very young age? I have tried to do that with sports and music, but I would never have thought of that as a child.

Sarah and I love camping and running. She is obviously a much better runner than I am, but she started when she was fifteen and I started when I was fifty. We also love camping and hiking. We never missed a father daughter campout, and we would occasionally go on an overnight camp just for the fun of it. We will also go for a run together every chance we get.

What activities do you enjoy doing as a family?

That is easy, we enjoy doing everything as a family. We even love to work together. Sometimes when we had a huge chore to do, we would all get together and tackle the job together. That is how we usually cleaned up our yard sometimes the garage.

We would go to the beach almost weekly during the summer. Every spring at the end of school we would gather up all their friends and have a bonfire on the beach and burn all their homework. We would hike to the waterfall every Memorial Day and often a few other times during the year. We would usually have a picnic in Coronado and watch the fourth of July fireworks. We would often have picnics at other places as well. We loved to hike together. A few times a year we would go to the movies together. For special occasions we would sometimes eat out, usually at Soup Plantation. We loved going to museums, especially the science museum but all museums and we would read all the signs at each display. We had seasons tickets to Sea World and the Zoo.

As I said, it didn’t matter what it was, if we did it as a family we enjoyed it. This post brings back a lot of fond memories.

How did you balance the demands of work with family time?

Brandons young mind often asked very adult questions. He once asked me why I wasn’t higher up in Qualcomms management levels. I told him that I was confident I could have been a director in the company, but to do that I would have to live at the company. Qualcomm was set up to encourage that. If you were there after 6:00 pm you could eat a free dinner in the cafeteria. If you were there on weekends you really got noticed.

I once heard a saying that has become my motto for life.

“No one ever said on their death bed, that they wished they had spent more time at the office.”

Mom gave me a biography of Thomas Edison, and I realized that I could have invented anything he did. The only difference between him and me was that he spent his entire life in his lab. He had a bed there and would not come home for days at a time. His kids hardly knew him and his wife (his second wife) stayed with him mostly for his money.

Early on in my career I made the decision that I was going to work five days a week from 8:00 to 5:00 and that is what I did. On rare occasions, in real emergencies, I would work late or on a weekend, but it was rare. Those had to be real emergencies too, because everything is an emergency for some people.

At Kyocera I was eventually promoted to Staff/Engineer Manager and I led a small team, but I wasn’t going to advance much further, working 8:00 to 5:00 and that was fine with me. I live for my family; I do not live for work.

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (54)

Monday, June 16, 2025

Do you have a family moto? What is it?

We don’t really have a family motto, but we do have a family cheer. As soon as Kira was able to talk, we started a family cheer. Every time we said our family prayers, we would kneel in a circle and then after the prayer, we would put our hands in the center of the circle and while raising our hands in the air we would shout, “The Leavitt’s Forever”. We all loved it.

What has brought you the most joy as a parent?

I tell everyone that will listen that your children will bring you the greatest joy and the greatest misery. When you see your children achieve something great or do something that brings them great joy, then your heart swells every bit as much as theirs do. If your child is sad or hurting, then you feel their pain as strongly as they do. If I had to sum that up into a single statement, then I guess the thing about being a parent that brings me the greatest joy is seeing my children succeed.

What significant illnesses have you had to deal with as a family?

The only significant illness that I can think of that we have had to deal with as a family would be Sarah’s IBS. We think it was instigated by a viral infection when Sarah was around fourteen or fifteen, but shortly after she got over a bad bout of the flu, she started getting gastrointestinal problems. She would get bad stomach aches and then she would get the runs and then she would get constipated. Her stomach pains were so great that it was debilitating for her.  

She then started through test after test eliminating Crohn’s disease, colitis, allergies, gluten intolerance, parasites, everything. They even sent a scope down her throat to see what it looked like inside her stomach. I think it is quite beautiful myself. Finally, they diagnosed her with irritable bowel syndrome. I’m pretty sure that is what they call an irritated bowl when they have no clue what is causing it.

To this day we have no idea what is causing it but while it still gives her problems, she has managed to keep it under control through diet.

While not a disease, three of our girls have had to deal with infertility, which was hard on the whole family. Kira, Sharley and Sarah all struggled to conceive, but through medical advances and divine intervention they have all been blessed to be able to conceive and bear children.

What is a trait your child or children have that you wish you possessed?

Let me answer this question for each of my kids.

Kira – is very patient and able to deal with difficult human relationships without offending or hurting the other person. She knows how to express her feelings in the least offensive way. Although what she says can be offensive, she is rarely more offensive than she needs to be.

Brandon – is very eloquent, and can put his thoughts down in writing better than just about anyone I know

Ben – is the gentle giant. Ben is slow to anger and even though he is susceptible to personal emotional hurt, I have never seen him react in a hurtful way. Even as a young child he rarely got into shouting matches or cruel arguments.

Alycia – somehow, is able to brighten any room that she enters. People gather around her and want to be her friend. She can relate to just about anybody.

Alex – is a leader. People want to be with him, and they want to follow him.

Sarah – has a kind heart. Even if she has been hurt by people she trusts, she is quick to forgive. She has a naturally sweet personality that can melt your heart.

If I could somehow incorporate each of these traits into my life, I would be a really good person. Some of the traits, however, are so foreign to me I have no idea where to start.

Dad, Tell Me About the Time (53)

Thursday, June 12, 2025

Where did you go for family vacations?

I don’t know if this is asking about when I was growing up, or about Lisa and I and our children. I guess I will talk about both.

We went on very few vacations when I was a kid, and when we did, it was always to go visit family. Our most common vacation was to go see Uncle Merlin and Aunt Nola in Salt Lake City. I remember a few trips through northern Idaho to see Grandpa and Grandma Lybbert and I think Uncle Ray and Aunt Birdie. I loved driving through the mountains, but the roads were so windy that I would get car sick and barf every time. I remember many times standing on the side of the road puking.

A couple of times we would go see Aunt Zona in Calgary. I did have some relatives somewhere in central Montana that we would go and see as well. Other than that, I don’t remember going anywhere.

As for me and my kids, our typical vacation was a road trip and cheap motels or camping. When we lived in Alberta we made many trips, usually with Lisa’s mother. Those were usually to Utah. We went to conference a few times and Lisa’s mom would do a lot of shopping. On one of these trips, we went on to California where I saw Los Angeles and San Diego for the first time.

After we moved to California the trips reversed, and we made lots of trips to Utah and back to Canada. On those earlier trips, we almost always visited Rosemary when we went to Canada.

There were a few bigger trips. Perhaps my favorite was a big loop up to Utah, Jackson hole, Yellowstone, Alberta, Vancouver and then down the coast, stopping in Oregon on a beautiful river for lunch and then camped in the Red Woods and back to San Diego. I will never forget the giant banana slugs on the tent in the morning.

Working at Kyocera I accumulated many air miles, so we made a trip to Hawaii and later a trip to Nauvoo. Many fond memories from those.