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BY TRACI HUHN

When you hear the popular phrase “it takes a village,” the ending of this old African Proverb most likely pops into your mind automatically. This ancient wisdom rings true

even today. In our independent and individual-driven culture where the responsibility lies primarily on mom and dad, the community in which we live still helps mold and shape our children as they mature throughout life.

If you turn back the clock even in these United States, you could see an actual village at work - like Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show and Walnut Grove in Little House

on the Prairie - where everyone knew everyone by name. If the owner of Bob’s grocery store in town saw your kid running into the street after a ball, he would stop what he was doing to make sure he was safe, lecturing him about the dangers of playing in the street. In these small towns, every person had an influence on your child. What does the village look like today? Well … you have to build it.

Today’s villages are not solely made up of people in your immediate proximity. Rather, we develop a network of people to count on when we may need a little extra support. This community allows us to breathe a little easier, but also provides a way for us to expand our child’s worldview. No one can build an entire village

in one day – it is a gradual process that you must invest your time and heart into over a period of time. The size of your network no longer depends on the size of your town, but on the work you put into developing relationships with people. And the more that you invest in your village, the more it gives back.

Deborah Duncan began building her village long before she ever knew why she would need one and continues to invest her time and heart into it today. As a military kid, she moved a lot - from place-to- place, culture-to- culture and school-to-school. She didn’t

mind so much, because she developed extraordinary people skills. Each new place held a new best friend and new opportunities. Earliest memories take her back to living in foreign countries where she grew up with people from around the world. She learned that the world was a big place – that no one person is better than another, just different. Her family moved so much that she became accustomed to introductions and interviews when walking into a room full of new people. Eventually she would learn that these people from her childhood were stepping stones of the path that would later pave her future.

Deborah always felt that she needed to do something great with her life – something where she could give back to people in a big way – perhaps become a pediatric neurosurgeon.

“As a college student, I had to figure things out on my own. There were no guidance counselors like we have now. I learned quickly to make decisions. Even wrong decisions are decisions,” Deborah reflects.

It was Deborah’s cousin who led her to the decision that would ultimately help her find her calling. “You like to do everything,” her cousin said, “I think the job that would do it for you is working for CBS Network.” Connecting the dots much later, Deborah realized that what she did on the playground at a very young age would become the basic foundation of her career.

After obtaining her degree in Radio/Television from University of Texas at Austin, Deborah worked in radio for two years before beginning a lengthy career in television. She played the role of both anchor and talk show host on various sets in Austin, New York and Dallas before

It takes a village ... IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME

PERFECTLY MIXED, PERFECTLY MATCHED 15

Nativiti Staff

settling into her current role as the host of Great Day Houston on Houston’s KHOU-11 network.

In 1997, while she was taping in New York, Deborah had a sobering experience. She was filming her new show Our Home and felt very content in her career – life was perfect. One day, she woke up, looked in the mirror and felt like she was going to die. The pain in her head was excruciating. Her first thought was to go to the set where her first guest was, coincidentally, a physician. He concluded that she simply had a headache, but because she typically didn’t experience headaches, she knew something else was wrong. Regardless, she decided she could tape the morning show, go to the doctor at lunch and get an MRI, come back and finish taping and have surgery that night. Instead her doctor’s visit at lunch turned into an immediate admittance to the hospital. As Deborah fought for her life, friends, family and fans began to come forward to offer support. One restaurant even catered the entire neuro ward on her behalf! The village that she had built was coming forward in her time of need. Deborah beat the odds and returned to work. But now, she knew she had more to do.

Deborah is an inspiration to all that know her. She can take an informative story and give it an inspiring twist. She knows how to connect with people, which is what makes her so good at what she does. But it also gives her tools to fulfill her most important role. While most know her today as Deborah Duncan, television host of Great Day Houston, Duncan knows her on a much more personal level – he calls her “mom” and is fortunate to have her as his biggest role model. Deborah shares a little bit about her parenting style and philosophy.

“We are often so busy telling them [our kids] what to do that they do not learn to do it themselves” Deborah said. She told a story of a father and his teenage son. In lieu of a curfew, this clever father tells his son to be home at a “respectable hour.” When the boy asks his father what time is a respectable hour, his reply was the same “a respectable hour.” Remarkably, the boy came home at 10:00pm!

This inspired Deborah to follow his example with her son Duncan. Apparently, Duncan is not fond of math homework. One day he was grumbling about doing his homework when he wanted to play a video game instead. Deborah told him, “You can play your video game after you do a reasonable amount of your math homework.”

“How many pages do I have to do?” asked Duncan.

She replied “A reasonable amount.” After a while Duncan exclaimed, “That’s

it, I’m not doing one more page of this math homework tonight!” When Deborah checked his work, she learned that he had finished five pages … out of six. Needless to say, this was one of those “Aha!”parenting moments for Deborah.

Just like any other mother, Deborah has learned some lessons along the way. One of her favorite moments of motherhood was what she calls the “Magic Cheetos” moment. When Duncan was younger, he asked for Cheetos and she gave him some. When he asked for more, she told him they were all gone. Duncan looked at her in disbelief. “Show me the bag in the trash,” he said. Deborah said “I’m sorry, I lied, they are not really gone, I just didn’t want you to have anymore right now.” She realized in this moment that her son responded better to her when she was just honest from the start. “Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ to your kids because you’re the parent. Don’t

tiptoe around them,” she said. Having a child can throw a curveball into

fulfilling the calling on your life and your career, but for Deborah, having a strong support system in place allows her to be both an amazing mother and a fantastic television host. In fact, just the other day she was reminded of that old African Proverb when her mom was in the emergency room and she was called on to be there for her. She taped quickly taped her show, then went to see her. Realizing her son needed to be picked up from school, she called her husband to help. When she got home, she found out that there was no AC in the house. Luckily, one of Duncan’s friends’ dad owned an AC repair business and came to their rescue. “Sometimes it feels like one thing after another and you just have to slow down, take a deep breath and handle one thing at a time,” Deborah said. “And it’s okay to ask for help from those around you.”

When asked what words of wisdom she had for our readers, Deborah’s answer made us smile.

“It’s not about perfection. Love the child you have, not the one you think you want.” In other words, we are all Perfectly Mixed, Perfectly Matched” to those who call us mom. ◘