Things I’m Thankful For – Day Five: My parents
The older I get the more brilliant my parents become. Not that I was ever one of those kids who thought their parents were out of touch and clueless, but now that I’m a parent myself I understand a whole lot more what they were up against. Parenting is not an easy venture, but they almost made it look that way.
I know they aren’t perfect. Trust me, I get that. But frankly, that just makes what they did look all that much more impressive. I’ve only got three kids. They dealt with six. Mine are all within four years of each other. Theirs were spread out over seventeen years.
As I was writing my first two blog posts this week it occurred to me just how much influence parents have on their children. My love of music and reading both came from my parents. I got much of my DIY spirit from my dad. I learned how to work from both of them. I inherited a level of thriftiness from them. They taught me to love the outdoors and appreciate education.
They always seemed like they knew what they were doing, too. I never caught them at “parenting”. They were just being Mom and Dad. They made it look easy. But they didn’t write any of it down, dang them! They were supposed to pass along the manual to me!
No, if anything I’m learning from my own experiences that it wouldn’t do any good to try to create a manual for two reasons. One, every kid is different and what they had to do with each of us probably wouldn’t work with my own kids. Two, by the time parents know if what they did worked it’s too late. You probably don’t remember what you did in the first place. I won’t have the slightest idea if I turned out to be a good parent until my kids are already gone and beyond fixing. You get one shot at it, and it’s learn-as-you-go.
All the more reason why my parents are impressive.