My older son was talking with his girlfriend about his upbringing while I was sitting in the same room recently.
It wasn't a new conversation. My children frequently talk about me with their friends, sort of like the way they talk about their favorite comedy show.
And their friends join in, complaining that I forced them to eat green vegetables if they sat at my table, or how if they stayed overnight, they had to do chores like the rest of us.
I don't remember how the conversation began with my son and his girlfriend, but it ended with, "I didn't get to play R-rated video games," he said. "My mom didn't allow them in the house."
That scene ran through my mind Tuesday as President Barack Obama talked about education during his not-quite State of the Union Address to both houses of Congress and to the American people.
He said there will be new education policies that will "open the doors of opportunity for our children."
We've all heard that before. We know education is the key to bigger and better opportunities, if only we get onboard that ship. That's nothing new. My parents said that all my life.
But then, Obama made my parents look like geniuses.
"In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent/teacher conferences, or help with homework after dinner, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, and read to their child," he said. "I speak to you not just as a President, but as a father when I say that responsibility for our children's education must begin at home."
Had my son been in the room, I would have said, "So, there!"
I've seen that philosophy, the one about parents being in control of what their children absorb, borne out with my sons' friends. Most of them were the prodigy of "mean" parents and had chosen to attend college or serve in the military while gaining skills beyond the high school level.
And I saw it with my daughter who would come home from college talking about how she and her dorm mates would complain about having unyielding parents.
Obama also challenged legislators to maintain high academic standards and teachers to work their magic in the classroom.
And he then turned the spotlight directly into my family room and into the rooms of every viewer, especially those of us in Kentucky where legislators are trying to come up with a way to improve public schools.
"It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work," Obama said. "But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma."
Go back to school? Old people, too? What is he asking? He is asking all of us to be at the top of our game.
Parents you know when your children are young enough, sometimes we have to study their homework in order to help them with it.
If we want to advance in your field, sometimes we have to take extra training to move to the next level.
And sometimes we just have to learn in order to stay in the game.
I have friends who know very little about computers, despite owning a desk top model and a laptop. They plan to start computer classes at the library in April because sitting on the sidelines has become more and more like sitting alone in the dark.
Obama is telling us that if education is important enough for our kids, it should be important enough for us as well.
He put the greatest amount of pressure and mother's guilt, however, on those children who are contemplating leaving school all together.
"And dropping out of high school is no longer an option," he said. "It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country, and this country needs and values the talents of every American."
My mother placed the future of black people on the shoulders of her three children, basically telling us if we failed, if we didn't live up to or go beyond our potential, then we would be a detriment to the black race everywhere.
She wanted us to understand it wasn't just about us. It was about something much bigger than us.
Parents and teachers should hang Obama's words in the classrooms of every high school in the land. At-risk students should feel a sense of obligation to and a sense of belonging to something much bigger than the drama of being a teen-ager.
He said they belong to America and that America needs them.
I know we have serious deficits and economic valleys and overwhelming health care problems, not to mention two ongoing wars. But it surely was good to hear someone telling our children, and telling us, too, that education, a good and continuing education, can keep us from getting in this mess again.
