Hey everyone thanks for all of the follows and like through out this series. I have decided to take a couple week break to truly practice what I post. I challenge you over the next few weeks to truly focus on your family and on your spouse most importantly. Take time out for each other even though it may not seem like there is time. Invest in each other, and make sure to show your love not through stuff, but through true dedication to working on your marriage and to building each other up.
Have a wonderful Holiday, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.
Right now as I hang out in front of the grill with the smell of cooking ribs I think about how thankful I am for my family. That I have a loving caring wife, a wonderful daughter, these two are the reasons I’m a Father and celebrated today. My Dad and my father-in-law, along with some help(yeah that’s you Mom and Jazmina), did a good job raising me, my wife and sister-in-law.
Both of these men have given me a Godly example of how to raise my daughter, provide and care for my family. I know I’ve said it numerous times before but I am so proud that my dad taught me things growing up that I still use today. I can build things, I can fix my own car, I can repair things in the house. Growing up my dad wasn’t the wordiest, still isn’t but, he knew how to get to the point. Most of our must have father and son conversations can be summed up with ” don’t be an idiot.” He always wanted better for me, and made me know that if I wanted something, I was going to work hard for it.
Too many times today, we see fathers and families that just have children. It’s a world of I take my kid here and there I go to their games, I participate in their life. Participating in their life is not the same as being in their life. There are too many stories on the news today of young men, going out doing unspeakable things. As a father, I want to instill in my child that I am here for her no matter what she does. I am also here to provide corrective measures as necessary.
Too many times we over-compensate for our work schedules, or for the things we feel our dads did wrong. We take the I’ll do it differently approach to the extreme. All kids get a trophy now, everyone makes the team. We set kids up for failure. As kids we had to fight our own battles. If you lost you tried harder next time, you learned what you did wrong and fixed it for the next time.
So I’ll end with this. Father’s be a great daddy today. Hold your kids tight, let them see you showing love to their mother, and be the daddy that they deserve.
It’s very true that our kids say the darndest, most brutally honest things, they get it from somewhere. Everything our kids do, they have learned it some place, from someone, somehow. A number of the things that they pick up, we don’t really mind, but it isn’t always the good things they pick up on.
Our kids look to us for what to do in social interactions and in all situations. Face it, you talk to your friends and co-workers completely different than you do around your house with your family and children, well maybe. None of us really think about some of the things we say or do, until they are repeated or done by our kids. There are so many kid’s today that are constantly in trouble, either at school or even the police, because of poor guidance or honestly a lack there of.
We have to guide our kids in the right ways try our hardest to keep them from doing just really stupid things. I mean yes there is a fine line from being an over-protective parent, a controlling parent, and a crazy, but that is part of being a parent. Face it, as a parent you are to be a parent not your child’s friend. Now don’t get me wrong, you need to be there for your children, but being the cool parent, isn’t always going to be the best thing for your kids. Now I’m not saying that I’m “World’s Greatest Dad” and should teach classes on how to be a father, but sometimes you go somewhere and you just think – I’m not doing so bad a am I…
We all have seen the kids, that make you think I wish they were your kid, or make you want to slap their momma. Pushing your kids to be respectful to others is one thing, but more than that, we have to push our kids to respect themselves. Too many kids today are “depressed” but are so privileged they don’t know what to do with themselves. We have pushed to far into the “everyone did great”, and the everyone gets a trophy mentality that there is no winner. This is where the problem comes along when these kids grow up and become part of “the real world,” if something isn’t handed to them, they don’t know what to do.
Let’s push our kids to respect themselves and others. Let’s push to break our kids of these entitled attitudes. Start the push from within yourself. Let you kids see you working hard for what you have and what your family has, teach them the value of money, time, love, and true friendship. Let’s see our kids change the direction of their generation and our world.
Ramblings of a Christian Father 