It's 4:30 am. What woke me up? The cat sneezing? Handsome Hubby's snoring? Little feet scuffling along the floor? No. Guilt.
A conversation I had with a friend yesterday keeps playing in my head. As we watched our children play together, laughing and splashing with other kids, we casually tossed around the question: Are we doing a good job? Being parents, I mean. Some self-deprecating comments, dancing around our personal faults, some laughter "Oh, I'm the same way..maybe worse! Ha ha!"...we agreed that all parents screw up their kids somehow, and ours will turn out just fine, considering. The silence that followed, however, hinted that neither of us are really confident.
And, here I am, awake. Are we too strict? Are we fair? Does Dee really just have an incredibly strong personality for her age, or is that a result of an internal struggle against us? Do we compliment and encourage her enough? Are we cultivating her Independence, or are we being lazy? When I have to start letting her go out in to the world on her own with her friends, will she make good decisions? Will she choose friends that are positive influences?
What do I need to change? What do I need to do better? How can I fix any damage I've done so far?
It's now 6:30 am, and I'm still staring at the dark. A bed creaks, footsteps thump across the floor, into my bed. Little arms thrown around my neck, and a little girl's voice berates me for being awake in the middle of the night. "Dee?", I ask. "What is it?", the reply. "Do you know how special you are?" "Yeah. I'm weally smart and I'm weally pwetty and I'm weally a good painter and I'm weally a good weader and I'm weally. Weally. Fwiendly."
She sounds so impatient, like I'm intellectually inferior for asking, and I have to smile to myself. Maybe we haven't done such a bad job after all.
The greatest gift my parents gave me was my love for God & the knowledge that I am the child of loving parents who loved me in a Nation that thrived on being unselfish towards other people. On a personal scale they told me that there were rewards for being good & rewards for being bad in God's world as defined by the Bible & rewards as defined by my parents. They told me that I was in charge of how those rewards were handed out due to MY actions and not theirs. I received blessings & gratitude for being Good & spankings or some other nasty reward for being bad which an intelligent kid like me soon recognized as FAIR. My parents made mistakes in raising me & I did resent their authority over me often but I loved them & hope to see them in the "Fields of our Lord after my earthly body is buried in MacLeod's cemetery.
ReplyDeleteYour children are learning that the rewards for being Good are the ones they wish to recieve and that is the lesson that will build their character in academics , life skills & people interfaceing. You have nothing to be guilty for as is proven by the strong arms that shower you with love in the middle of the night.
As an added reference point I think confidence is what will allow Dee to thrive when coupled with her smarts & strength of character but Humility is also a blessing that she should develop in order to get the full benefit of respect from her fellow men/women.
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