Your children need your presence more than your presents. ~Jesse Jackson

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sam187

Tags:

parents ruin things

parents and children

bad parents

becoming a parent

Haim Ginott once said, "Parents often talk about the younger generation as if they didn't have anything to do with it." It should really should be said that parents have the most to do with the younger generation for as I have recently learned most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children. I know I intended on spending many more years pissing off my parents, traveling the world and only being responsible for myself most the time before I became pregnant. I was as grown up as any 20 almost 21 year old needed to be. I was in no rush to grow up to end up a work-aholic or figure out which diaper is less likely to give my daughter butt rash. However, in the months since I became pregnant something happened.....the things that were at one point very important to me became less and the things that were less became more. I also became more appreciative of my parents and the role they play in my life. The fact that as much as I was happy having a trying, trouble some, somewhat money based relationship with them........it was a perfect relationship for who I was and thought I wanted to be. I really didnt want them nosing around my life. I wanted then just to be there when and if I wanted them in my life and to only be there on those terms. What I wanted and the plans that were actually taking lace on there side were a part of a whole different ballgame as most the people in my life know. Yet, I have recently developed some what of a new appreciation for my parents. It actually seems like they legitamately care about my life. Not that it didnt seem that way before, but before it more seemed like they were trying to control it then actually taking interest. Now, they seem to actually want to know what I am doing,what Ben and I are doing together, and what I want to be int he future. It is slowly becoming nice to grow up and a little less scary then I thought it would be. This whole exeperiance made me realized that my friends are not necessarily better advice givers or decision makers then my parents. That sometimes following my heart is the best way to go not that having a set of backup directions is bad, but who says getting lost is always a bad thing either......its just another adventurous path in life.

I mean I know simply having children does not make mothers and that I wont know how to do everything when she gets here. That just because I want to say no or feel like I have to protect her in a stainless steel battle tank bubble doesnt mean I should. I have learned that taking time to do the research when it comes to a child pays off sometimes more then you ever thought it would when writing those really long essays for university. It has also become clear that your gut sometimes is smarter then the doctor you woke up at 3 am just to ask if your about your chest pains.

More recently though I have learned something very important from my family that has probably always been there, but I never really got until now. Let it be said that with 2.5 months of pregnancy left before my daughter enters this world that I have possibley realized a very cruicial lesson; that each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children and it is up to us as parents (future parents in my case) that it is up to us to make those memories worth being there in the first place.