Having recently written my very popular (kidding) multi-part informative series on marriage, I’ve decided to embark on the next logical step: children. I’m thinking that many who read this aren’t even to the marriage part yet, but I’m hoping that you will experience an epiphany of common sense when reading this new series, the scales will fall from your eyes, and you will find yourself reformed in your thinking on the subject. So go ahead: feast on the wisdom I now set before you.
Simple observation of history and our surroundings has shown us that any numbskull can create offspring. It’s an easy thing to do. Dogs do it, and many adults and not-yet adults do it with the same mindset as dogs. Blindly led by their hormones and urges, they unwittingly create children. Children are too often born to parents who, not long before, were children themselves. Adulthood has been forced on them by responsibility which many will shirk and others will lazily acknowledge. Their offspring will be poorly raised by parents who were themselves poorly raised, not embracing responsibility, but putting it off as if it were a household chore that could wait until next week. A cycle is then perpetuated, with poorly prepared parents, unwilling to improve their child-rearing skills, raising poorly taught children who soon enough become another generation of ill-prepared, unteachable parents.
Thankfully, my observation is not as bleak as it sounds. There is always a chance for parents to break the cycle. There is always the chance for children of poor parents to overcome the fruits of their parents’ non-labors. So with the opportunity to overcome--the chance to step away from circumstances we are born into--what’s an excuse worth? Not much. Motivation and a desire to change come at a much higher price than apathy and indifference, and there are few willing to pony up the difference.
The most unfortunate scenario though is the parents, well-taught and well-raised, that don’t pass what they were taught on to their children. One excuse is laziness. Raising children properly is hard work. People who blow off this work continue to puzzle me. Perhaps they are thinking that their children, left to their own devices, will turn out OK. Perhaps they are thinking that their parents methods were backward and in need of improvement which they, the new generation of enlightened parents, will be better able to provide. The "new" direction is usually more laissez-faire, and is actually a downgrade. It provides nothing for making the children better people than they would have received had they been raised by wolves. Fools always see their generation as the best and brightest, as the most knowledgeable, and the best qualified to undo the ruination of previous generations. What a stupid, short-sighted notion! God save us from such as these.
Since trying to reason with a fool is like trying to teach a pig table manners, the most I’ll idealistically hope for is that some misguided soul will mistakenly stumble in here and unexpectedly glean some value from these lessons. I’ll also be content if those who agree with me are able to have their ideals shored up by a like-minded friend. The greatest possible benefit though will be for a young person, perhaps on the cusp of marriage and/or parenthood, to rethink and refocus their own notions of parenthood, both what they’ve received and what they will eventually administer to their own kids. There is one thing that separates us from those dogs mentioned earlier: we have the capacity to better ourselves. Whether we exercise our gift as a higher being to do so is another question.
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