Parenting thought for the day

Comments   4   Date Arrow  April 7, 2009 at 8:33am   User  by joel

It is not my goal to make my children’s lives easy.  To be sure, neither is it my purpose to make their lives difficult.  Rather, it is my goal and purpose to train them and shape them and prepare them for the lives they will be leading when they are no longer under my wing.  And so, as any coach or trainer would, I must keep fresh in my mind the knowledge that difficulty often accompanies or even progresses the goals of training; ease rarely does.  This does not mean I am to become a rigid, imposing drill instructor with no grace or mercy, but rather my love for my children compels me to stay focused on the larger purpose over the desires of any given moment.

Tagged   Parenting

4 Comments

  • #1.   owlhaven 04.07.2009

    Yup. Tough job, isn’t it?

    Mary

  • #2.   Sarah Holston 04.07.2009

    I love your use of the word training. I think that is a parent’s main job. People often spend more time training their dogs than they do their child.

    We all need the sense of accomplishment that comes from working hard and not giving up and seeing the positive end result. Why would we want to rob our children of that by making things easy!

  • #3.   Jenn 04.07.2009

    Huh. So there’s more to it than just having the kid & posing him for cute pictures? Dang. I’d better do some more reading in the next couple of months. 🙂

  • #4.   Kelsey Kilgore 10.21.2009

    hey Joel… just wanted to thank you for a comment you left years ago on my blog. Discovered it again tonight. (google ‘holymama moron birthday’ to get to the post if you want to revisit your own thoughts.) thank you, really, for taking the time to share what you did there.