It had been a rough couple years. He had bounced out of the army. He struggled with a drinking problem in a time when alcoholism was not well understood and there were no resources besides raw willpower. He couldn’t find much work besides manual labor to support his growing family, which then included seven-year-old Frederick, five-year-old Ulysses Jr., and two-year-old Nellie.
But you know what Ulysses S. Grant did? He did that manual labor. Good god, what are you doing?, one of his army buddies said when they saw Grant selling firewood by the side of the road. “I am solving the problem of poverty,” Grant told him with a smile. It would take more than that. A few days before Christmas in 1857, Ulysses S. Grant pawned his watch. Not to buy something to drink, but to for $22 with which to buy Christmas presents for his family.
That’s what parents do. They do what they gotta do. Even if it hurts. Even if it’s a little embarrassing. Even if it’s ‘beneath’ them. They push through. They sacrifice. And even when they mess up, even when they go through dark periods, they understand that it’s never too late or too hard to turn things around.
Within just a few years of that painful December day, Grant was leading one of the largest armies ever assembled. Within 12 years, he’d be the President of the United States. But of all this, we can imagine, he was most proud of who he was as a parent.