(This was an old post that I never actually published. I figured I might as well.)
I don't mean to make anyone feel bad by writing this, so let me say that upfront. It's just that, well, I tend to leave parenting classes or seminars feeling like a big, fat failure. (It's the same after reading many parenting books or blogs.) It seems like whatever I was supposed to do when they were younger I didn't. I didn't manage to be as calm and nurturing as I should have been. I didn't take every opportunity I had to connect them to Christ. I yelled. I lost my temper. I was too permissive. I was too strict. I didn't play with them enough.
The list goes on. Oh, I know that no one is perfect. No one does it right all of the time, and, of course, everyone admits that. It's just that when you're a perfectionist you've never done enough. It's just never enough.
(Cue The Cure here...)
(LOL! Yikes! Pure, creepy awesome, that is.)
Anyway, I digress.
Ahem. So I was feeling pretty down last night, which carried on into today. I said something to Craig about it; the girls were there and joined the discussion a little bit. Tonight, Katie goes, "Why did you say you felt like a failure as a parent? What do you think you didn't do right?"
I gave her the short version of my answer and then said, "Why do you ask?"
She replied, "I've been trying to think all day what it could have possibly been. I don't think you guys failed at all."
So there you go. Straight from the horse's mouth. (I'd apologize to Katie for comparing her to a horse, but she probably wouldn't mind in the least.)
0 comments:
Post a Comment