Mike at Night What Do We Owe Our Children Parenting is the most awesome responsibility in the world. Everything else pales in comparison. Regardless of your status, station, or position in life, regardless of whether you're at the bottom of the social class pyramid or at the very top, parenting is THE most important job you will ever have because each of us is shaping and molding the next generation. So, what do we owe our children? We owe them every positive experience we can provide. In today's column, I'll talk about the most important ones.ROLE MODEL. Whether we like it or not, we serve as role models for our children. We have them during their most impressionable years. The experts are pretty much agreed that a child's basic personality and sense of self is developed by the time they're seven or eight years old. To a great extent, that personality and sense of self is derived directly from their parents. They watch everything we do, they listen to everything we say, and they mimic everything they see. That's why it's so important to make sure you've exercised most, if not all, of your "wild hairs" before you take on the role of being a parent because it's not a part time job. It requires total effort and selfless dedication. We must do whatever we can to give our children the very best shot of being successful in life. We do that by modeling responsibility, morality, maturity, nurturing, and love. Children raised in families that withhold love or families where love is not present will learn to do the same thing. Children raised in tumultuous families where fights, arguments, disagreemens, and put-downs are the rule rather than the exception will grow up to behave in the same way. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that children raised by parents who violate the law are most likely to become law violators themselves. Children raised in alcoholic or drug-using families are most likely to develop alcohol and drug problems themselves. Children raised in physically or verbally abusive families are most likely to act out those same behaviors once they're in a relationship. We teach our children to be either perpetrators or victims of anti-social behavior depending on the sex of the child and the parent they role model after. Children miss nothing. Unfortunately, the negative behavior tends not to develop until later, so parents who don't know better believe they are raising good kids when, in fact, the other shoe is getting ready to drop. SHELTER IN THE STORM. We have a moral obligation to make sure our children always feel safe and secure in their home. When the storms of life are bashing them to and fro, they should always know that love, shelter, and protection from the elements of life always await them at home. Home has to be more than a house. It has to be a way of life. It has to be filled with love and respect if we want our children to embrace those emotions themselves. A special sense happiness and contentment should overtake our children whenever they walk in our door; a secure knowledge on their part that their parents love them unconditionally and unequivocally and nothing will ever diminish that love. That even when they have to be punished for violating rules, the punishment is being conducted out of love rather than anger. I grew up with an axiom I heard often in the Baptist Church I attended when I was young: "Hate the sin but love the sinner." That's how w must discipline our children. We don't like what they did but we LOVE them. DEPENDABILITY. Our children must have the sense that they can always depend on us to be there when they need us. Not necessarily to give them whatever they want but to be there for counsel, advice, love, and support. We should never turn our back on them, regardless of what they need or what they have done because we're the only parents they will ever have. And we'll be their parents forever. Before my mother had her stroke, we talked two or three times a week on the phone and she would always ask me if I needed her to send me five or ten dollars. That's the nature of being a parent. Good parents never stop being parents, regardless of the age of their children. Children will go in the direction they're shown. Those of you who aren't yet parents, think long and hard before you make that decision, because your life will be unalterably changed forever once you do. It's the most important thing we will ever do. For the sake of the children and our future, don't screw it up. ____________ Mike can be e-mailed at mikeatnight@hotmail.com |