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Health & Fitness

Saying Goodbye to our High School Kids

Mill Valley's closet conservative celebrates the Tam High graduating class of 2012 and their families.

There are countless issues that divide the left and right, conservatives and liberals. I’ve touched on a few in this blog. One issue that rarely falls into this divide is the affection we have for our children, and the bittersweet pains we feel as our children leave the nest. This Friday, my daughter graduates from high school, and I along with my hundreds of friends in Mill Valley (the majority who swing to the political left) are all in the same sentimental boat of saying goodbye to our kids.

Keeping the theme of this blog (the Closet Conservative of Mill Valley), I acknowledge that back in 1998, when my daughter entered , I was still as left as Jerry Rubin, Jerry Brown and Jerry McGuire. It would take another 4-6 years before I competed my journey to the land of the conservatives.

Only on occasion in my 14 years of interaction with fellow parents has politics entered the conversation. Probably the most it has entered the fray has been the past 2-4 years when I publicly came out of the closet as a conservative. Most of my friends either nodded and said they too have a great deal of their core values that fall right of center, and a number who are lefties to the core, but appreciate the fact that there is another side of the coin that is not a bible-thumping, racist, sexist and nuts. (My words, not theirs…)

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My first contact with young families in Mill Valley was in 1998 at Robin's Nest with the Coopersmiths, Glaves, Utters, Henns, Roses, Mullens and Kuhns families. It was a small class but we became part of a special fraternity – the parents of the FIRST preschool our kids attended. All of the above mentioned families had their kids attend Tam, and ALL will be there next to me on Friday as our “kids” graduate from high school. 

Mill Valley is a special town to raise children. Safe, clean, and affectionate.  If there is another school district in the U.S. that has better parent-student interaction and involvement, I’d like to see it.

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Eventually my daughter went to , , and . All great schools, and all with hundreds of kids who come from great families. Our daughter was in the girl scouts, attended , played soccer, CYO basketball, and Mill Valley girls softball. 

Eventually we felt a connection to hundreds of families in the community. Long after my daughter stopped playing basketball, my wife and I would attend basketball games at Tam. We enjoyed games for sporting entertainment but also for the connection we felt to the other players who at one time were teammates of my daughter on other teams.

This Friday I will be watching 296 students graduate from Tam High school. One is my daughter, . Dozens of others are children of couples we’ve built an unbreakable connection over the years as being “Mill Valley Moms and Dads.” I will smile as each of these kids receive their diploma and I recall the memories and connection we have at one time had in their lives, and they in ours.

Cheers to all the Tam parents who have graduating seniors this Friday.

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