I woke up late for work today. The weather here in the province is just perfect for intense sleeping under the blanket. Under this weather condition, my hate-the-blanket daughter covers herself with it. She could not stand the cool breeze, too!
Well, anyway, whenever I go down to the kitchen to work, as my work area is basically on the kitchen table, my step-mom is usually already awake. This morning, she had a bad mood and when she is, you don’t want to mess around with her. My two brothers then again, as always, were the cause of the commotion. If I were to look at the situation in my perspective, I’d say my brothers acted as what they know appropriate. My step-mom on the other hand just happened to exercise what she knows parents are supposed to do. I cannot impose to my step-mom what she should do or how she should handle the situation, I can only suggest or make her understand their behavior in a subtle way. As a parent myself, it is not really wise to tell another parent what they should do. It is insulting to the other. We can only share our best practices but never impose. Wise parents know when and what to listen. My brothers grew up with strict, stiff and consenting parents with only life’s experiences as their teachers. The downside of not having someone to guide us is that no one will balance the lessons we learn, no one to tell us that we have gone overboard. And we need good teachers for that.
My step mom was screaming mad with my brother’s irresponsible acts but were they trained to be equipped with that in the first place? We ask so much from our children when we have not given them what they need. I realized that as parents we need to own up of what our children have become, to asses ourselves if we’ve equipped them enough to know, to understand, and to adapt. It takes a whole new level of patience and wisdom to raise responsible children, and not everyone takes that into consideration before becoming one. Parenthood unlike other phases of life is an ongoing process. Once we become one, we never stop being one til our last breath.
Is it then imperative that as an individual we need to carefully choose to whom we raise children with. Having a partner who compliments our losses makes a big difference. Parenting can be daunting and raising kids alone is not an easy feat. When my step-mom refused to give my brother his allowance, my father stepped in and demanded her to give it. He knows that my step-mom was just fuming mad. My father can sometimes be a pain in the ass but he sure knows what to do when the situation calls for it.
All parents dream to raise responsible, successful, happy children but in the process we forget if we are happy wives/husbands ourselves. We think that we live in the service of the ones we love and we call it sacrifice, but too much can become destructive. Parents need a breather, we need sometimes to find a way to make our children see and feel that they are blessings and not burdens, that they complete the family and are not just unavoidable responsibility. Children deserves happy parents.
count.steps.forward 