The Greenhorn Chronicles 56: Lynne Denison Foster on Recognition & Repetition (3)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/02/08

The Greenhorn Chronicles 56: Lynne Denison Foster on Recognition & Repetition (3)

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What about recognition?

Lynne Denison Foster: In terms of recognition, often, as parents, typically we will focus on what kids do wrong instead of what kids do right, right? The principle I learned from Eric Berne,  is that what gets recognized gets repeated. When teaching this to the leaders for their employees and staff, I use the example of children. Let us say you and I meet in a supermarket; I have my children. You and I are in a conversation. The kids want my attention, saying, “Mommy, mommy.” I say, “Behave yourself, be quiet.” The kid wants my attention. Because I am talking to you and ignoring the kid, sometimes, the kid will knock over a display, hit the brother, or do a naughty thing. Then, what does the parent do? They pay attention to the kid. Now, the kid learns that the parent will pay attention to them if they do naughty things. My principle is that it’s more important torecognize when the kids do good things. Because what gets recognized, gets repeated.

So, instead, say to the little child, “I am speaking with Scott. Let us listen to what Scott has to say, then it will be your turn.” and then at the end, say to the child, “Thank you for being polite and listening to what Scott has to say.” Coincidentally, I made a point of recognizing a good action the day before yesterday. There was a kid competing at the horse show. His dad had left his riding boots in the car. The car was way over in the east parking lot. The kid had to go right away to the ring and get on his horse. The dad says to me, “Lynne, I left Jairo’s riding boots in the car. Do you know any kid who can let him borrow boots so he doesn’t miss the class?” 

Do you know Veronica Dromboski?

Jacobsen: No. 

Foster: Veronica is a trainer and she was there, training some of her younger students. She said, “Skye, can you lend Jairo your boots?” Skye said, “Yeah.” I said, “Skye did something nice and readily helped him out, without hesitating. She is eight years old.” I spoke to Veronica. I said I wanted to recognize Skye for that. I got some George bucks (Thunderbird gift certificates) and wrote a note to say, “Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity, and it was good of you to give up your boots and allow Jairo to enter the ring.” I gave it to her yesterday. The girl was over the moon. This is another example of how much recognizing even the simplest ordinary gestures can have an impact on the person who did something nice. It made her day! You must recognize this. That even not-so-great, ordinary gestures can be recognized. 

Jacobsen: I cannot say. However, you have made a very kind gesture for a young lady, a teenager I know. One was having a tough day. That was a very sweet thing that you did. I appreciate that. Things like that are the currency of many equestrians I know. 

Foster: Yes. I am fortunate because I did have children who were easy to [Laughing] manage. I do not know how to explain, but it is easy to impose those principles. However, I have to say. I had a father who was like that. He would do similar things and help us learn things by living our lives. 

Jacobsen: You mentioned earlier the church you’re a part of; your partner, Glenn, was more of a kid.

Foster: He is still a kid. He is 74. I am still his mother [Laughing].

Jacobsen: Did you feel alone in that parenting effort regarding the heavier lifting?

Foster: We were married for ten years before we had children, and we were married for 25 years when he chose to leave the marriage. I always say I was a better mother than a wife for him. He needed a mother at the time. I was told by my childhood friend, who is still my friend. “You have always been a mother, even when we were in elementary school. When someone was fighting, you would try to help them resolve their issues.” I realized I did not know what kind of person I was then. Even a few days ago, I was cleaning the house, and found a good citizenship award certificate I received when I was 11 years old. Also, when I was a young teenager, I belonged to the Anglican Girls’ Auxiliary, and was awarded the GA Honor ring. It was an honouring of my contribution to the values and principles of that organization. I didn’t realize that was the kind of person I was; I probably imposed some of those principles on my daughters when they were growing up. 

Jacobsen: It is a sense of temperament rather than role. There is a sense that temperament comes first, and the role is derivative. 

Foster: I wanted children so much. I lost one child. She was born too early. But there was a reason for that. I am very grateful for that. That is another long story that I don’t need to tell you. I had Tiffany when I was 35 and Rebecca when I was 36. Sometimes, you have a different approach when you are that age. Like, my friend said, I was always a mother. I had that attitude and gratitude for being gifted with two precious daughters. Tiffany was a very sweet baby. Rebecca, if she could eat, she was happy. [Laughing]

Jacobsen: There is a trendline there, too. I have approximately two years in the industry with no background. When I am at competition grounds, do work, or even at the home barn, most of the people who show up for these kids are the moms. In much of the community, at least in English riding, show jumping, and eventing, the mothers are the ones who are the support, the infrastructure as you called it yesterday, for the wellbeing and trajectory of health and wellbeing in this sport for mostly girls in this country. 

Foster: Your original question was if I feel alone.

Jacobsen: Yesterday, I interviewed one woman who is the mother of a girl in para-dressage. I asked her, “Do the mothers talk and have a similar experience? “She said, “Yes.” Not necessarily the aloneness, but just the anxiety about getting kids to a functional, independent life, such as it is. I would assume a similar thing for you and other mothers of daughters in show jumping. 

Foster: At the North Shore Equestrian Centre, we would sit there watching our children, and we became friends. As a result, when the three families chose to come out to Thunderbird, it was the moms, not the dads, who were there. The moms initiated, ‘Our children should be going somewhere else’. The environment wasn’t good for them or the horses at the time.  It was another mother and I who did research and site visits. Also, we were all living on the North Shore. One family did move out to Langley. My husband was a firefighter and worked four days on and four days off. He used to say, “It is a pain in the ass, to have to drive the girls to the barn” etc, even though he had the most free time of all the parents.

Jacobsen: That’s horrifying.

Foster: The one set of parents that moved out to Langley had one daughter. The other six kids had to be driven there from North Van six days a week. The other Moms also had children who were in different sports. So, they were only able to drive one day a week for the six days. I drove three days a week. 

Jacobsen: That’s the teamwork. 

Foster: We supported each other. I had two daughters who were both in the sport. They each had two more kids in sports that they also had to support. I lived in North Vancouver, worked at the airport in Richmond, and had to get out to Langley from the North Shore. The best I could do most of the time with their father, Glenn, was to have him drive the kids over the bridge so I could get them to their lessons on time. There was a Costco on the Grandview Highway and Boundary Road. He would bring them there, all of them. I would pile them into my car. I would drive to Langley after work, hang out with the kids, and bring them back. We developed a system that worked. I don’t know if I felt alone because I had those women. I had the women who were there. The dad provided the money to be able to have the kids go. Mine didn’t. He liked to spend the money on other things that were important to him. But again, you manage as you can. Tiffany and Rebecca began working and earning their lessons and things like that.

Jacobsen: Do you notice any changes in cultural trends, speaking of equestrianism? Women in developed societies are a significant portion of the employed economy and are far more educated than men. It is not even close. For instance, in some countries, women are 40% of the breadwinners, making more or being the sole income. Do you think dynamics are changing some of the assumed roles within a partnership, a heterosexual partnership?

Foster: I was the only mother of those families that worked. The other two (women) did not work. They were stay-at-home moms. I suppose, yes, it must be changing. I cannot say because I am not in that society anymore. I am 74 years old. I have a 37-year-old and a 39-year-old children, now women, who are my daughters. Perhaps, in my role with Thunderbird, I do see. But I do see fathers there more than when my kids were younger. I do see dads supporting their kids and being with them. A lot of them support their young kids. Then there are the  mothers who are the ones that are riding, and the fathers are there with the children. That is a different society than what it was when I was there. Again, my kids didn’t start riding until they were 8.  It wasn’t like competitive riding, and  I wasn’t a rider.

Jacobsen: Also, the options available to women were more limited.

Foster: I was a working mom, an airline customer service instructor who had to regularly travel for my work.I did not even think about a hobby. I was involved at the church in my community in North Vancouver when my children were younger.  We had a group called  St. Martin’s  Players. We did musical theater and performed pantomimes. I also was a Brownie leader. That was my recreation. When my husband and I split up, and I moved to Langley, I joined an A Cappella singing group. That was my personal self-preservation indulgence. I was also very lucky in my life path because of my daughters and their interests. 

Jacobsen: You’ve given your life to them.  

Foster: I did. I did. I gave my life to them. That was important to me because I wanted children so badly. I love kids. 

Jacobsen: My mother had miscarriages and a similar sensibility. 

Foster: You value them so much. They are very precious assets or whatever. I don’t know. But if you can provide something to help them to grow, why not do it? I get a sense of accomplishment. I can take credit for providing the opportunities to pursue those paths because they couldn’t do it without me. If my husband and I hadn’t split, we probably wouldn’t have come to Langley. They wouldn’t have started to work for Brent and Laura. Tiffany wouldn’t have shown that she has this talent. Brent and Laura wouldn’t have put all this effort into Tiffany because she was riding their sales horses. Maybe, if we had the money, Tiffany wouldn’t have gone that path anyway. She would probably be an amateur owner doing it as a hobby. I don’t know how to explain it. I feel like there was a destiny kind of thing.

Same for Rebecca. She has great respect in the food service community with influential people because she worked with them. Rebecca is an incredible person, too. She was attending university and because we could not afford her to attend full-time, she would go from September to December. Then, she would work in the horse world grooming from January until August to earn money and then return home to attend the fall semester.  I started working in the industry to keep my eye on my kids because they were working. I wanted to ensure they were doing what they were supposed to do and that they weren’t exploited. Young kids, “I love horses. I will do anything.” Sometimes, adults take advantage of that. 

Jacobsen: Correct.

Foster: I did not want that to happen to my girls, particularly with Tiffany in the film industry. I was there, so I made sure everything worked for her. I wanted to do the same when they were working in the horse and equestrian worlds. By that time, I was working at BCIT.  I was getting nine weeks of vacation. Brent suggested that I go talk to Dianne(Tidball), Laura’s mom, to see what I could do for work at Thunderbird during the horse shows. He said, “Dianne could probably use some help at the new facility, go and see.” I did. That’s when she said, “You can do hospitality.” I was feeding everybody. She wanted all the employees fed: office staff, in-gate people, ring crew, officials, and also to provide some interesting exhibitor events. 

I was the only one in hospitality at the time. I did it. But I had a 13-year-old, Rebecca, who loved to prepare food. She helped me when she wasn’t grooming or going to school. Then Chris Pack who was working at Thunderbird, and his friend, Pat Kerr bought this little trailer that they made into a little food concession. They called it The Tasty Bit. I co-signed a loan for him. They were going to university at the time, and I thought, “I need to help you with this.” So, we developed a menu that offered a healthy alternative to fast food, and Rebecca became a cook at age 15. She stood at the 4-burner stove in that trailer for 3 to 3.5 hours a day preparing custom-ordered hot pasta without a break. She would cook the food and I would buy local produce and prep it for her.  It was a good concept…healthy fast food.

By the time she graduated high school and had attended four semesters at university. She thought, “What am I doing going to university?” She thought that was what she had to do. She loved working with food, so she switched to Vancouver Community College and registered for the Culinary Arts Diploma program. While going to college, she got a job at a Belgian-style pub.

There were three jobs available. One was dishwashing. The other was hostessing. The other one, I forgot, was doing food prep, maybe. She applied for the dishwashing job. I said, “Rebecca, you have been helping me prepare food and you have experience as a cook. Why are you applying for a dishwasher job?” She said, “I applied for a dishwasher job because I already know how to be good at washing dishes so I don’t have to worry about it when I’m at work. If there are other things I can offer to learn to do that aren’t my responsibility, I will get more skills.”

‘If you want the best the world has to offer, offer the world your best.’ She did. Then she started helping the chef and the sous chef. Pretty soon, the restaurant owner said, “Rebecca, I want you to do this and that…no more dishwashing!” They were teaching her things because she was eager to learn. She did her job well. So, he wanted to reward her. She went to culinary arts school and then graduated top of the class. As a result, she had an opportunity. 

Do you know the Chambar Restaurant in Vancouver?  Nico Schuermans, a chef originally from Belgium, owns it. He is well known. He co-owns the Dirty Apron Cooking School and Cafe Medina. Rebecca worked for him. He thought she was incredible. He is still her mentor. By thinking, “When I go to work, I want to do the job well. Then I can learn more things and can contribute,” she has gained a very valuable relationship with someone who willingly has supported her in her venture as a restaurant owner herself. It will be 12 years next season that The Bale and Bucket has offered healthy fast food at Thunderbird Show Park.  

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