Parents may be Root Cause to Wayward Children

Far be it for me to judge but the truth often hurts especially if it is a truth that no one really wants to hear.  This is the case with this article so for those with sensitive egos, you may wish to stop reading here.

Speak to anyone who takes their parenting really serious and the first thing you will hear from them when addressing why they make some of the decisions that they make and you will hear “I don’t want my kids to grow up like me.”  That statement alone is not only a cop out and an excuse but a poorly constructed one to boot.  Think about it!  You don’t want your children to grow up like you.

You who takes their parenting responsibilities so serious that they stay in a loveless marriage or in a thankless job in order to keep the family together.  You who take you’re parenting responsibilities so seriously that you make time to show up at each and every event that your child or children are involved in.  You who take you’re parenting so seriously that you sacrifice each and every day, each and every minute to make sure that your child has what they need.  Are you sure that this is not just a small portion of how you would like your children to turn out to be?

Now here is where that statement becomes a cop out and an excuse.  With the statement of not wanting your kids to suffer as a child like you did, you have this very sweet sounding reason and one that many others will never question you on.  You do not ever have to answer any further than that because after saying that statement, many who may wish to inquire will stop right there.  You just “copped-out” of explaining yourself better and clearer.  Where the excuse comes in is a little deeper, it begins with the belief that you are doing all that you can to keep your children from being raised as you were to the point where you actually do more harm than good.

Consider this; you were raised without getting everything you wanted so you want to make sure that your kids do.  Along this track now you raise spoiled kids who think that the world revolves around them and that which they cannot con someone out of they take by force.  You raise your children to have more than one good outfit because you remember having to make that one outfit last for years, so you buy them clothes every time you get the chance so they have plenty to choose from.  Now you have just demonstrated to your child that it’s the clothes that make the person instead of the person who makes the clothes.  You work two three jobs to make sure that your children does not go one minute without food to eat because you remember how you felt coming in from school, looking through the cabinets and seeing only that spider and it’s web in the corner.  So you stack the home with food from stem to stern and because this is the time of quick and convenience, much of it is unhealthy, microwavable stuff.  Now your child has bloomed to an amazing size and is now having trouble moving around because when they get bored instead of you being around and teaching them to exercise by playing a few hours of day outside, you were working.   You couldn't make it to any activity that they were involved in because you were doing the best job you knew how to make sure that they did not come up like you. 

Congratulations, your child may have all the food they can eat, all the clothes in the world or all the attention that they can muster from others but you failed to provide them with the most important thing in any child’s life.  You failed to provide them with a parent.  They have no one to emulate because you were too busy making sure that they did not end up like you.  They did not enjoy their time anywhere because all they wanted was for you to be there but the job came first.  They did not see how a family is supposed to interact because the closest thing to family they had was only on the television.  You failed to provide them with a parent but got to give it to you; you did succeed in making quite sure that they will never end up like you.