Hello. There is a great line from one of the all time great movies (in my opinion) “Terms Of Endearment” where Debra Winger says to Jeff Daniels on the subject of parenting “as hard as you think it’s going to be, you wish it was that easy”. That may not be the exact quote but it’s close and sums up exactly how I feel today.
Having children has been the highlight of my life. The best thing I will ever do. But sometimes I wonder, for the briefest moment, what the hell I was thinking about. I mean really, didn’t I learn anything from my own childhood and what I put my parents through? Evidently not.
I’m probably being a little hard on myself. I know I talked with my kids infinitely more that my parents did. Now to be fair, my father wasn’t a talker. He was never gonna sit me down, listen to my problems, and offer some opinion or advise based on his years of experience. That wasn’t his style. And my mother was a teacher all day and a housewife when she got home from work. And with three other children in the house besides me, the chances we had to talk were few and far between.
So I learned like a lot of kids did, on my own by making mistakes, a lot of mistakes, or from my friends, who advice also led to mistakes,a lot of mistakes. So I guess it’s not really a surprise when my kids learned the same way I did. Living in another city doesn’t help, but technology being what it is today, living apart from my kids can be overcome.
As a parent, there are times when you think your doing it right, when everything seems to be working out it looks like you’ve finally come through the worst of it. And then there are those times when you begin to doubt everything you’ve ever done for or said to your kids. When you more insecurity than they probably do.
That’s where I’m at today. Not quite sure how things go to hell sometimes and unsure if there’s anything I could have done to change what’s happened. Maybe even feeling a little bit guilty that I wasn’t just a little bit better at this whole parenting thing.
I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow. Problems are just opportunities to improve ourselves or our situation. Try to find the positive, no matter how far we have to dig for it. And never give up. It’s not our style.
Hey, maybe I know a little more about this whole parenting thing than I’m giving myself credit for. Time will tell.
I’ll talk to you tomorrow, when I’ll be playing in quicksand, again.
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