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5 Popular Parenting Ideas that Can Hurt Our Kids

Posted in Lists, Opinions, Parenting / Family, Social / Political, tagged , , , , on February 12, 2010| 3 Comments »

While an important part of parenting is caring and providing for our children, another equally vital element is preparing them for life in the adult world. Many times our efforts toward the former can unwittingly undermine our efforts toward the latter.  As I watch an unprecedented number of my contemporaries raising their grandchildren, most often because their own children can’t be bothered with it, I can’t help but think that some of these ideas may have contributed to the problem.  As you read through these it’s easy to see how interrelated they are.

 

  1. “Education is the most important thing.” While I would never argue the importance of a good education, I’ve come to recognize that ultimately there is something of even greater value, and that is work ethic. After dealing with highly educated people, who possess little work ethic, and uneducated people, who are hard workers, I would choose the latter every time. I’ve found that you can teach someone with a good work ethic just about anything, but without that quality, a good education becomes of little worth. Like education, work ethic is something that has to be consciously cultivated throughout a child’s formative years.

 

  1. “Why stand in line when you can drive thru.” Western culture has taken the attribute of “convenience” to absurd new heights, and, more often than not, has sacrificed genuine quality along the way. Few would argue that fast and/or processed foods have much nutritional value, yet we as American’s tend to view them as a worthwhile trade-off for the convenience that comes with them. Unfortunately, we are raising generations of kids with that same “fast food / microwave” mentality to life and relationships.  They increasingly have the expectation that everything should be fast and easy; and they have little patience or perseverance for anything that isn’t.  Unconsciously they are coming to prefer the weightlessness of virtual reality (e.g. Facebook, You-tube, Twitter…) to the friction and gravity of the real world.  These patterns render them unprepared for the adversity that is an inherent part of human existence.

 

  1. “I don’t want my kids to have to struggle like I did.” Undoubtedly, no one likes to struggle and as parents, we hate to see our kids struggle even more. Unfortunately, it is in the midst of the struggle that we tend to develop the character and work ethic that it takes to overcome adversity. Like lifting a barbell with no weights on it, the lack of any real resistance prevents muscles from developing.  A truly successful person isn’t as much defined by their victories as they are by how they handled the adversity they encountered along the way.  As I raise my own children, I’ve come to realize that saving them from every struggle will likely handicap them for life.

 

  1. “You’re the exception to the rule.” As a parent, it is important to let each child know that they are truly unique and special; but often times, in our efforts to convey that, we make them believe that they are the exception to the rule. While that generally does make them feel special, I’ve found that it doesn’t take long for a child to believe that they ought to be the exception to every rule and that “if you really loved them”, you’d find a way to exempt them from all the rules they don’t want to follow. For such a child, life becomes an endless series of rationalizations, negotiations and manipulations with the people who have influence over them (e.g. parents, teachers, coaches…).  Ultimately this pattern tends to carry on into their adult relationships (e.g. with their spouse, with their employer, with their creditors…) as well.

 

  1. Everyone’s a winner. My kids have walls full of trophies (and medals) from all the sports they’ve participated in. One day they asked me where my trophies were and they were genuinely amazed when I explained that, when I was a kid, only the champion’s won a trophy. While as a parent I can appreciate the idea of building self-esteem by giving everyone a trophy at the end of the season, as someone living in the adult world, I can also see the folly of it. That same kid who always had an excuse to miss practice, who never came to games prepared to play, who never really contributed to the team, and who got the same trophy at the end, is generally the guy who does the same thing on the job and expects to get the same paycheck as everyone else.

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10 Truths About Truth

Posted in Lists, Social / Political on February 12, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Statistics indicate that somewhere between two-thirds and three-fourths of adults in America believe that the truth is relative (i.e. that each person gets to define what truth is for themselves).  I don’t believe that most people recognize how vastly this differs from the ideologies which helped to form our nation or the repercussions of such a paradigm shift.  In light of that, I offer these thoughts on truth.

1.   A man who deceives himself is incapable of being truly honest with anyone else.

2.   A truth that can be altered based on perception is like a compass without a “magnetic north” – it is utterly useless.

3.   To the man who seeks to find meaning in life, the truth is a welcome friend; but for the man who seeks nothing beyond his own comfort, it is a relentless adversary.

4.   It is not the open mind that finds truth, but the heart that yearns for justice.

5.   Throughout history the Constitution of the United States has been one of the most successful documents of its kind.  Regardless of its’ many lofty principles, it is the relatively simple phrase, “we hold these truths to be self evident” that has been at the core of that success.  At the point that those words no longer ring true, the rest of the document and the republic for which it was written will cease to be relevant.

6.   A man who is unwilling to succumb to a truth that is higher than himself is destined to become a victim of his own vain imaginings.

7.    There is no such thing as “new truth”.  The truth has always been; it is only our perception of it that changes.

8.   In a society that embraces the idea that every man is allowed to define truth for themselves, every law becomes susceptible to the charge that it is an obstacle to personal liberty.  Such a society is destined to progress toward a state of lawlessness.

9.   It is not truth that is relative to us, but we who are relative to the truth.

10.  If every man is allowed to define truth for themselves, then God has no just standard by which to judge them; but if truth is absolute and unchanging, every man’s life speaks for itself.

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10 Things I Picked Up Along the Road

Posted in Lists on February 12, 2010| 3 Comments »

 

 

1.      Misery not only loves company, it wants to settle down and have children too.  I’ve noticed that miserable people not only seek out other miserable people to bond with, but that they’ll often unconsciously sabotage anything that has the potential to pull them from their misery.  There are few emotions that are as debilitating and self sustaining as self pity; and generally the only way to remain free of such feelings is through a dogged determination not to live that way.  As long as we are willing to blame other people and circumstances for our condition, we will remain powerless to change it. 

2.      For everything there is a season and it’s important not to despise the season that you’re in.  If you live long enough, you notice that there is a sort of pattern that life follows and that things come and go in seasons.  While we have natural tendency to like some seasons better than others, I’ve found that every season comes with both challenges and blessings.  If we focus on the challenges of the season we’re in, we’ll often miss the blessings and spend our time pining away for the season to change.  Conversely, if we focus on the blessings of each season, it makes the challenges easier to endure and brings a sense of variety to the journey.

3.      A love that is unwilling to sacrifice isn’t love at all.  When we say that we love someone, we often just mean that we love how they make us feel or what they add to our lives.  While it is not wrong to appreciate what someone brings to our life, genuine love transcends merely getting my own needs met and places the needs of others in my priority.  I’ve noticed that most of the broken relationships that I’ve encountered included at least one person who felt justified by the fact that their needs weren’t being met.

4.      The truth really does set you free.  Early in my life, I developed a knack for telling stories, which is a nice way of saying that I was a compulsive liar.  Throughout my adolescence I told so many “stories”, that at times I lost track of what the truth was.  Consequently I walked around for years wrestling with a guilty conscience and a fear of being found out.  It seems that the longer I entertained feelings of guilt and fear, the more overwhelming they became.  In instances where the truth was uncovered, I discovered that my fear of the consequences was normally exaggerated compared to the reality of them.  Even when the consequences were significant, I found that there was a tremendous sense of relief whenever the truth came out.  After many years of walking through this cycle, I finally decided that even if the truth wasn’t always pretty, it was the best way to avoid fear and shame.

5.      No person or thing can “make you happy”.  People can support us, love us, inspire us and even enhance the quality of our life; but unless we determine within ourselves to find the joy, the beauty and the hope within our given circumstance, we will never be “happy”. The idea that it is someone else’s role to bring happiness into our life places tremendous pressure on our relationships, often causing them to fail (e.g. they just don’t make me happy anymore…).  Similarly, material things do not have the ability to bring satisfaction to our souls.  I’ve noticed that people who can be grateful for what they have today, will generally be that way regardless of what they have; and that people who crave something more, will normally continue to crave regardless of what they get.

6.      There are few jobs easier than being a Critic and few that are more taxing than being a Builder.  I’m ashamed to admit that there have been times in my life that I’ve been like the guy who sits in the back of the classroom, ridiculing the person teaching the class; playing the role of Critic, while someone sincerely tries to have a positive influence on the people around them.  While I might try to rationalize that their efforts were less than perfect or maybe even in vain, life has taught me how little that criticism helps anyone.  It takes a tremendous amount of effort and patience to bring unity where there has only been division, or to stir a group to battle when they’ve only known defeat or to restore a sense of hope to a place of desolation…  The Builder must make a concerted effort to create, while the Critic can bring destruction with little effort.  As a witness to and a participant in both of these processes, I’ve committed myself to spending the rest of my days being engaged in the building up and not the tearing down.

7.      The path of least resistance is rarely a road worth taking.  Often what causes something to be valuable is that it cannot be easily attained.  It follows then that the most valuable things in life normally require some perseverance to apprehend.  While everyone may sincerely want these kinds of things for their life (e.g. a healthy body, a strong marriage, a successful career…), few are willing to endure the process it takes to secure them.  Unfortunately we live in a culture that increasingly values convenience above quality, and in which many of our children have grown up with an expectation of the instant gratification of their desires. Many a parent has worked hard to ensure that their kids get a great education, so that these children won’t have to struggle like they did.  Unfortunately it is in the midst of the struggle that we tend to develop our character and work ethic; and without this development we are generally ill equipped to handle adversity.  I’ve found that you can teach someone with character and work ethic just about anything, but without those qualities, an education becomes of little value.  I’ve also come to believe that giving my children everything that I didn’t have when I grew up will likely handicap them for life.

8.      The answer to the age old question of whether man is basically good or basically evil is “Yes”.  After years of observation I’ve drawn the conclusion that there is both good and evil inherent in mankind.  Because man was created in the image of God, there is goodness inherent in man’s design (e.g. because God is love, men are created with the capacity to love…).  Unfortunately man also comes with a highly corruptible nature, which is generally propelled by selfishness and a host of insatiable appetites.  Despite the beauty within our design, we must first overcome our nature, if we are to tap into our true potential.  When we chose to live by our instincts, we become like a well built car, with a tank full of bad gas, never reaching the fulfillment of what we were designed for.

9.      It’s hard to be Clint Eastwood if you’re Mr. Rogers.  As I was growing up, my conception of what a man was came largely from my father, who was a fan of men like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.   Throughout my adolescence there were other icons (e.g. John Travolta – Saturday Night Fever, Rambo, Don Johnson – Miami Vice…) who seemed to collectively shape the culture’s conception of manhood and who I unconsciously graded myself against.  Since I was nothing like these men, I assumed that I just wasn’t much of a man and in subtle ways I let their image affect how I walked, talked, dressed…, but as I got older I began to notice that there weren’t many things less attractive than someone trying to be something that they’re not (e.g. a middle aged woman dressed like teenager; a suburban white kid acting as though he grew up in the ghetto; a man with a bad toupee, acting as though it is his natural hair…).  I eventually came to peace with the understanding that regardless of the fact that I bear little or no resemblance to the trendy cultural images of manhood, the best thing I could do was to be myself.  That catharsis has  allowed me to do things like wear the clothes that I feel comfortable in, to act silly in public just to make my kids laugh, to say “I love you too honey” to my wife when I hang up the phone in front of someone, to cry at sad movies…, all without feeling self conscious.  I highly recommend it.

10.  It’s not whether you win or lose, its how you play the game.  Experience teaches us that the road to victory is generally paved with some amount of defeat; and that how we respond to those defeats will generally determine whether or not we ever come to the place of victory.   While victory tends to be the goal of every player, I’ve found that what we remember is how they played the game.  It is not necessarily the player with the highest winning percentage that captures our imagination, it is the player who played unselfishly, or with integrity or who overcame the biggest odds…  Even for those who taste great victory, it is always in a moment that quickly passes into a lifetime of other moments.  At the moment we pass from this life, it won’t be that moment of glory that matters most; it will be how we lived all the other moments that defines us.

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