I must confess that two of my most memorable moments were watching my daughters, Jordyn and Julia, being born. In some of my lessons at being a father, I believe that my daughters first two years are the most important. I believe that because that's the time I wanted to start teaching them how to crawl, walk, talk, learn and comprehend. By teaching my children, I helped them become very smart and well educated even before they got into the Head Start program. During the time that I was around my older daughter, Jordyn, my wife, taught her to speak a little bit of Spanish while I helped her learn a little sign language. This helped her know how to communicate with both adults and children. It also enabled her to make adult decisions on her own with regard to who she talked to. As she got older, Jordyn was just as much fun to play with as to teach. She already had a high capacity to learn and understand what was going on around her at all times. Because she was now older, we could take her out with us to dinner or to movies she wanted to see. She was also able to pick out the clothes she liked. We would take her to parks and watch her run around and have fun. She would play on the slide, jungle-gym and all the other things they had there. It was quite fun watching her as she got smarter as she got older. Up around the age of four, the only people Jordyn enjoyed talking to were adults. I would sit and watch as friends would bring their children over to play with my daughter, but all she wanted to do was talk to the adults. She was able to handle most adult conversations and gave good feed back. She would only play with the children that she'd known for years. To tell you how smart she was, one morning, I was sleeping-in. She was sitting on the bed next to me, watching TV. When I woke up, she informed me that she could get whatever she wanted from her mom by whining and pouting, but I punished her if she acted like a spoiled brat. Now, around that time my wife was pregnant with our second child. Jordyn knew about the pregnancy and anticipated the delivery. She would sit there and talk to the unborn baby and rub my wife's stomach. I believe that she was as excited as my wife and I were about having another child. Jordyn helped me cook different meals when her mother wasn't feeling well. She was always especially good when her mother was un-well. She was always around to help out in any way that she could. She stayed out of trouble and did what she was told even if she didn't like it. Now that we were going to have our second daughter any day, Jordyn couldn't wait and neither could I because it was around the time of my birthday. Julia was delivered on August 15, 1996, one day before my birthday. It was fun for all of us because we were at the hospital when my wife gave birth to my second daughter, Julia. Our older daughter continually wanted to teach her younger sister how to do everything and wanted to take part whenever we tried to teach her. We took them both to parks and watched our younger daughter try to crawl around on the ground. Our older daughter would be right there trying to help her. With the birth of Julia, her big sister became a real help. We would take them out to picnic. One time I was showing Jordyn, the older girl, a little stream where there were fish. My wife started screaming because there was a duck sitting right next to her. Her screaming startled Julia who started to cry. Jordyn went running back to them to see what was wrong. She didn't realize that her mother was scared to death of all birds. Right before I got locked-up, I was trying to get our younger daughter to say her first word, but it didn't happen until I had gone to jail. I did get to see her walk for the first time before I came to prison. That was a very memorable day as were all my moments with my daughters. Watching them grow up and mature from infants into young children; I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. Editor's Note Often the public views prisoners as objects, evil "things," even as animals. The truth of the matter is that most prisoners are parents; often pretty conscientious parents. Some prisoners are still spouses. All of them are people just like you and your neighbor. Prisoners must be dealt with in civil and decent ways; in the way that you would want to be treated yourself. The next time you detest a prisoner, visualize little Jordyn sitting on his knee, smiling up into his face. Maybe none of us is so bad as stereotypes can make us seem.