Well, RW sure picked a fine sore spot with me for a topic of conversation. Fact is, I’ve been so upset about this one topic since yesterday that it is the main reason I didn’t come up with anything else to say this morning.
So, anyway – true confession time. If you take away the class of people who do not sufficiently love their children, who abuse them or who abandon them, and leave only the rest of us to choose from, then my wife and I will win the trophy for World’s Worst Failures As Parents. Hands Down. No exceptions.
So, don’t listen to me about children – listen to RW.
By the way… please treat this true confession as what it is… just a baring of the soul. I might have an impulse reading this to reassure the writer with some thoughts like “all parents feel the same way sometimes” and what not – such would be wasted on me. I’ve seen, and I know. I’m generally a pretty optimistic guy. Not much gets me down. This subject, if engaged deeply, sends my soul to the pit of despair… So… now you know & I’m going to try to think about something else just as soon as I possibly can.
Yep, I’m a gonna tell you not to be so hard on either your sweetie or yourself, and give you reasons, but first, I wonder what exactly you are using as criteria to judge parents as to whether or not they are “good”.
Here goes….
1. You love your children, you do not abuse physically, mentally, or emotionally in any way – never have and never will!
2. You provided them with a food, shelter, clothing, educational opportunities, and love!
3. None of us feel that we did as well, loved as much, prayed enough, or was as wise as we wanted to be because “hind sight is better than foresight by a darn sight.”
4. Parents are not solely responsible for all that children choose. There is a big world out there and an information highway that shape people.
5. Last but not least, you have children who are smart, sweet, handsome guys that God is not finished with yet.
Thanks, pal!
Although I agree that you’re far too tough on yourself, I swear that I didn’t even know you had kid(s).
Yeah – I try not to get personal here… I’m kind of a private person – it’s just that what you brought up & when you brought it up called forth a bit of an emotional and impulsive response. I have two boys – stepsons, actually – 18 & 20 years old.
As you said to me when I was low, “I am with you.”
Emotional and impulsive usually means wrong.
After my girls got married I used to stay awake at night and wonder about the things I did that I wished I would have done differently. I would focus like a laser on my failings. I always saw myself as a father in the past tense.
It dawned on me one night that I was still their Daddy and that I should not focus on the kind of Daddy I had been but rather on the kind of Daddy I would still strive to be.
I am sure when I was 20 my parents must have been thinking, “man did we screw up!”