Posted on 06/16/2007 9:35:12 PM PDT by Coleus
I sure will...Love, Maryxxx
Bless you for setting the standard for your children. I get really ticked off at parents (my own son included) who don’t make their kids work. They won’t know diddly squat when they get older and face the real world. They’ll have no inner core for when times get tough, and times WILL be really tough. Your children are blessed to have you.
My oldest son just lets his kids do what they want, no boundaries, no rules, no work ethic. One of them quit school and has been on drugs, in trouble continually, spent a week in a mental ward (doing better on that end at least), and has no motivation to anything but sleep, smoke and drink. He’s essentually a good kid but he has no inner strength, no ambition. I blame his parents. The second one just graduated by the skin of his teeth, the third one got kicked out of school and had to go to another school where they have programs for troubled teens. He’s doing much better. Their mother home schooled them and she never should have—bi polar, untreated. That family’s a mess. My son is clueless. I think he’s adult ADD to boot.
Life is really going to be tough and kids need to prepare for it now or they’ll never make it. Thanks for being a good parent! Love, Maryxxx
I set the standard my parents set for me. They were a lot easier on me than I am on my kids. Somehow, what they taught, took. They grew up in the Great Depression. They experienced real sacrifice. My dad fought in WWII. Their lives during the depression surpasses how difficult it is for us to make ends meet now. They had it so much harder. My Dad (the easy one, the one I was able to wrap around my finger :)) didn’t want me to work weekends during the summer, didn’t want me to ever have to work as a teen. He was always sliding me money (don’t tell mom, kind of stuff) but his life, his actions, taught me a wonderful lesson. Same as my mom’s. She was always, you have to work, be independent financially. It’s funny how their roles switched with my kids. My dad thought I was wonderful as a mom and my mom thought I was too hard on my kids. Yet, they both supported me as their kid when I was a kid and as a parent of their grandkids. They were true role models (my husband uses them as an example, pro and con on my mothering skills, I really am tough, sometimes too tough on them).
My parents taught me how to do well, and not rely on help from anyone else. They also taught me what “hard” is and I haven’t had that hard life yet. IT ain’t easy, making ends meet, even with a husband who makes probably above the norm, even with all the college and grad degrees. My parents never went to college, I know many who haven’t gone to college and are incredibly intelligent, smart, hardworking, etc.
You raised your child/children well. You can’t take the blame for their faults just like you can’t take the credit for their successes. Not “you” just using it as a term. My cousin (long story but most of my cousins are more like aunt/uncle age and I’m close to their kids, my age), had two children. One, the girl, was a drug addict, really bad. She’s now, 46, successful. The son was close to perfect, he’s now 42, doesn’t speak to his mother or most of us, always on the right track but boom, got married to a loon and all hell broke loose. My cousin (the mother) always tells me how wonderful I am as a mother, how great my kids are. I tell her the same thing, I won’t accept the blame for their faults just like I can’t accept the credit for how great they are now. She feels she failed as a mother to the one kid. She didn’t. We all do what we can, the best we can. There comes a time when the kids make their own choices, mistakes, etc. Our job as parents is to guide them. Your son is probably doing what he thinks is best. In a different family, that attitude he has, may have turned out differently.
Although, I do tend to blame the parents at times too. We have friends who set no boundaries at all for their kids. One for example has two. One kid is fine, the other is a terror and the parents don’t see it, don’t deal with it.
My kids, so far, are so easy, so good, and I don’t really know why. Sure, some of it is because we’re both basically good but flawed parents. Some of it is they’re basically just good kids.
My one brother and I are completely different in just about every way yet we had the same parents. He wasn’t the best parent to his now adult kids (who are my age). One ended up in juvie, it’s a miracle or something that he’s turned out so well as an adult. The other was always sorta straight arrow. Now the latter has kids, my kids age, who are on the wrong path.
Sometimes, I believe it has to do with how much or how strong God is in their lives. How open they are to HIM.
I agree wholeheartedly with your last statement (and all else too). It hurts me when I see my child ignore God now. Part of his problems, if not all of it, is due to his putting other things and people first in his life.
It’s very, very hard raising kids now. My parents were immigrants and they worked hard but made little. But we never knew we were poor. Nowadays kids expect (and get) so much stuff! Our houses are inundated with STUFF and it doesn’t mean anything in the light of eternity, does it. Love, Mxxx
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