Everyone has Parents

"Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Adams and your children all have something in common – Parents. You can make the difference."

When I saw this advertisement for a seminar, I thought to myself:

"Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hirohito and your children all have something in common: parents."

Right now I find my responsibility and influence for good or bad in my children's lives overwhelming. Suzuki said, "A child improves depending on his parents." The bible reads, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). When a person goes bad, the parents usually get the blame. Last week I read an article about Tiger Woods that placed the blame for Tiger's lack of moral character squarely on Earl Wood's shoulders. The author, Jason Whitlock, wrote:

After his press conference in February, I wrote a column comparing Woods to Michael Jackson. No one blamed Elvis Presley or Quincy Jones for Jackson's fall from grace.

We blamed Joe Jackson, Michael's father.

Is there a difference between Joe Jackson and Earl Woods?

Both focused on raising entertainers more than human beings.

When I read the article, I was ready to blame Earl Woods. I even thought of blogging about it. Of course I am trying to raise caring human beings with character. Shame on him!

This week I'm not so sure. I'm in a Christian, forgiving mood. As a homeschooler, not only do I get the blame if my children are poorly behaved or delinquent, but I also get the blame if they lack knowledge of history, times tables, reading, writing, penmanship, nutrition, science, spelling, grammar, and algebra. Have I missed anything? My husband Eric kindly and quickly pointed out to me mid-rant that I also get the credit, but at that moment I didn't care. It's just not fair!

My Christian mood might not be strong enough. The person I can't forgive is me. Sometimes I get tired or sick and I realize that I am not consistently working with my children on the skills I want to help them develop. In my view, consistency is the hardest thing to be consistent about. Today when I walked in my children's rooms, disgusted with the mess on their floors, I felt angry. When I walked in my own room, disgusted with the week's worth of laundry baskets full of clean clothes on the floor, I felt shame.

Shinichi Suzuki said, "Practice only on the days you eat." How impossible that seems to me! Some days we miss math, on others instrument practice gets skipped, we don't do a little Spanish homework every day no matter how many times I set that goal. When I'm in a dark mood, I conclude that THE thing wrong with my life is me. I lack pretty much everything.

Excessive guilt and discouragement are unproductive feelings. I realize that perfect parents don't exist. I do, however, give some priceless things to my children that no one else can:

• I love and want each individual child.
• I spend lots of time, both quantity and quality, with them. Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." I believe that by giving them what "life is made of," it shows that I value my family.
• I know them better than any other teacher could.
• I never give up (for more than the length of a pity party).
• I seek improvement.  

My religion also gives me comfort. A speaker in my church referred to the effort to be like Christ as "attempting the impossible." As a mother, I'm sure that all my attempts are exactly that. However, if we lay our efforts on the altar, Christ accepts our sacrifice, our heart and our spirit, and we can be given beauty for ashes. That is a grace, a strength, a promise I can rely on, because everyone has parents, and we can all also be the children of Christ.