I know how you feel...or do I? (Part 2 of 3)
So why is living an exemplary life important? Look at your kids, for me having daughters that I am raising this is very emotional and a little unsettling; imagine them grown up and as adults having a life of their own. All that you have to do now is imagine your child bringing home a possible spouse for you too meet for the very first time; this is their hope of your approval though they won’t really care what you say and your chance to see what kind impression this person makes on you. The person your child will be attracted to is going to have attributes that you have, it they are you opposite; well then you had more than speed bumps in the development of your children.
If you want your daughter to date men who are gentleman, how will they spot someone faking it when they have never seen what a gentleman behaves like? A son starts dating women who are constantly control him and he doesn’t seem to mind; perhaps it was because mom shackled him by being controlling a bit too much. Then there are kids who were raised by absentee parents and suddenly mom & dad can’t understand who their children are turning into; and are even more dismayed to see that it is their gym coach or art teacher because they were the adult influences around during the formative years.
In the past 15 years society has pushed so much at us on how we were raised so bad and the backlash to this I’m afraid is worse than us turning into shouting parents. They are so paranoid of another generation of parents yelling at their kids that it has become ok to let children be raised with the “village” mentality. Sorry folks, if you are going to let other people raise your children, then your children will grow up to be other people’s kids. (I have entire blog on this coming) They then will look for qualities of someone else because you have not given them any; if you are lucky perhaps they will rebel and be strong self-motivated people who then will have children that will have a great example to follow. That is a gamble I am not sure I would ever want to take.
So now you must start to think of what kind of person you are and how this is perceived by your kids, by your peers, by your family and friends. Have you identified any habits you may have you need to change; pre-wiring in your emotional home that perhaps could use a little renovation? If so, then you now need to decide what to do about it by figuring out what the influence of it is. Once you discover all of this, and trust me this is one of those, painting the Golden Gate, a thing you do over a lifetime. Often we look in the mirror and want to change things about us, it is time to change something on the inside and who know…perhaps that will make the outside appear much different too.
Satnam