Book Snap #4 Lessons from the book

"Caesar adopted Octavius as his son...The adoption was a personal, not a political act. However, Caesar was handing Octavius a priceless weapon: his name and his clientela, all those hundreds of thousands of soldiers and citizens who were in his debt. As he must have known, he was giving the boy an opportunity to enter politics at the top if he wished to do so" (Everitt 37).

This resonated with me because one of questions my honors students contemplate is was Augustus successful to his own talents, or was it the time in which he lived. The will itself sealed his legacy with soldiers at his disposal, money, and more important the Caesar name. This may have allowed him a chance at success. His ruthless matters in proscription (confiscating property, and killing off rivals) and his administrative skills seems to also play into being.

What a great way to think of how we should treat / advise young people.  On page 6, the author discusses the "egg tooth" of a bird.  This extra tooth is needed to help the baby break out of his shell.  He has all that he needs to complete this task.  If the parent bird helped break the shell, the baby would likely die.  In terms of young adults, they have the skills but need guidance, without doing for them.  Although we may want to step in often and take care of things, or make things better, we have to learn to guide them to do for themselves.  I wish I did a better job of this when my adult children were younger.  I absolutely intervened too much and may have made them weaker for a bit.  I can think of several scenarios I would have done differently.  One situation was when my one son was practicing driving on our street with a friend (when he shouldn't have been).  He was 15.  He was trying to make a turn at one point and pushed the gas too hard and hit a neighbor's mailbox down.  He was so upset because he knew he wasn't supposed to b driving without us yet, and because he did damage to our neighbor's property.  Instead of having him take care of the situation (which is what I would do now if I could do it over), I went over and told the neighbor what had happened and apologized.  We took care of the cost of repair etc, and of course the neighbors were great.  My son did write an apology to them (which i know is a cop out instead of facing them), and he did pay us back for the repair.  In lookig back at this, this definitely doesn't help a young adult stand on their own.  I could have taken a back seat and advised him how to make things better rather than take over myself.