Parenthood

I found this on the internet, sorry about not giving credit where due, but no name was given with it.


What my mother taught me…

My mother taught me to appreciate a job well done:
“If you’re going to kill each other, do it outside – I’ve just finished cleaning!”

My mother taught me religion:
“You’d better pray that stain will come out of the carpet.”

My mother taught me about time travel:
“If you don’t straighten up, I’m going to knock you right into the middle of next week!”

My mother taught me logic:
“Because I said so, that’s why.”

My mother taught me foresight:
“Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re in an accident.”

My mother taught me irony:
“Keep laughing and I’ll give you something to cry about.”

My mother taught me about the science of osmosis:
“Shut your mouth and eat your supper!”

My mother taught me about contortionism:
“Will you look at the dirt on the back of your neck!”

My mother taught me about stamina:
“You’ll sit there until all that spinach is finished.”

My mother taught me about weather:
“It looks as if a tornado swept through your room.”

My mother taught me how to solve physics problems:
“If I yelled because I saw a meteor coming towards you, would you listen to me then?”

My mother taught me about hypocrisy:
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times: don’t exaggerate!!”

My mother taught me the circle of life:
“I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.”

My mother taught me about behavior modification:
“Stop acting like your father!”

My mother taught me about envy:
“There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don’t have wonderful parents like you do!”

Thanks, Mom!


Mothers are such a wonderful gift.
Sounds like such a silly, trite thing to say, doesn't it? It just seems so obvious that it doesn't need to be said.

Well, sadly, there are Mothers out the that don't take this gift seriously enough to hold the honor of being called Mother. They don't want the responsibility. I'm not saying that every woman should 'strive' to be a Mother. Not at all. Some women should never be a mother. But, unfortunately, some of those very same women are mothers.

And the same thoughts I put forth here are applied to fathers as well.

Parenthood is something that should be taken much more seriously than it is. It is a grave responsibility.

It is the very fountain from which we all learn basic societal values such as integrity, responsibility (to ourselves and to others), how to love (how to give love and how to accept love), respectability (of ourselves and of others), how to learn (to know the joy of expanding our horizons to further ourselves). Sadly, too many parents leave the bulk of learning all of these things to our school system. This in itself is being taught to our children, to put responsibility off onto someone else.

I believe that parenthood is too big of a responsibility for some people. It can be overwhelming to some. We, as a society, should be able to receive help from others in raising our children. We, as a society, should be able to step into a situation where we see a parent is struggling with a child. Perhaps someone has experience in a given situation that another parent does not and is failing terribly. There should be no stigmatism at not being able to handle 'every' situation perfectly. That is a lot of pressure.

Being a parent should not be a 'hit or miss' proposition. We do get only one chance per child to do it correctly. Something this important should not be such as crap shoot.

Overall, we are not doing a stellar job at raising our children. We are not all experts at it. Who is? Why can't we have some repository where we can go to learn from mistakes that others have made so that we can learn how to handle a given situation, or be given the best advice on how to behave in a given situation.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to take lessons, or whatever, to learn how to be a parent, how to raise a child. We could all learn what is needed to 'mold' them into being better (I mean more productive) citizens. I know this sounds too much like mind control, but isn't that what rearing children entails?

We could raise people who know of the importance of pulling our own weight, of not being a burden to others. We could all learn that when we hurt others we are truly hurting ourselves.

I for one think we could be so much better off without those 'leeches' in our society that 'live off of' the rest of us. Everyone knows who I am talking about. The criminal element who would rather steal from someone else than work for what they need to live. And those people who kill someone, often for very selfish, short-sighted reasons and then become someone the rest of us have to support.

Think of how much more productive our society would be if we did not have to support the prison system, welfare, greedy CEO's who get paid way too much, thieving people in positions of power who think it is their 'right' to take from others who depend on them. I know these human traits are just human nature and everyone says we cannot doing anything about it. But that is just a cop out.

Many of these values I would like to see more people display could be learned through a religious education. Unfortunately, the connotation of a 'religious education' leaves a bad taste in many people's mouth's, mine included. But you see, even something as 'good' and 'beneficial' as learning how to 'love thy neighbor' has even been spoiled to the point that too many of us can't bring ourselves to try to teach that to our kids.

I don't know if people think that if you go too far with religion that you are opening yourself up to others taking advantage of you. I guess there is some reality in that fear, and that is very unfortunate.

We are sinking, quickly. We are all losing faith, in ourselves, in others, and in what we know is right.

We need some 'heroes'. We need someone we can look up to. We need mentors who will not be found out to be taking advantage of us. If there is someone out there who is not just in it for themselves, I really wish they would step forward.

The 'heroes', the 'mentors', the 'leaders' we have known throughout history have all been found to have faults. After all, they were just human and we all have faults. I am willing at this point to accept some faults if the right 'hero' or 'mentor' would only show up but the frequency at which these people come along seems to be getting less and less.

It used to be that they could be found almost anywhere, a politician, perhaps a policeman or a firefighter, maybe a judge, a carpenter, or even a parent.