raising-children

Human making is our mission, but if you break the very soul of the would-be humans, then there will be no human to raise.

Children rarely follow parental advice unless it is acted out repeatedly. It__ called being an example.

There is nothing glorious about creating life out of passionate penetration. Even the animals can do that. The real glory comes when the life you create becomes the help in the lives of countless other humans.

If you live long enough & have changed enough diapers like I have raising 6 whole grown adult children one-at-a-time; you ought to be able to call out bullshit blindly, in about a million different ways & plays. My potty-training days have long been over...so what fool retards at their wisdom stage? For this chief reason, I could show you better than tell you, try as you might: you cannot change grown ups diapers in life, who think you don't know how 'full of shit' they are today.

Start working on your child__ mind. Start building your child__ character. Raise your child as a human being, instead of raising boys and girls. Raise human beings with the religion of love in their hearts. Raise human beings with the language of compassion on their lips. Raise human beings with the color of joy on their face. Raise human beings with the force of bravery in their nerves. And these brave conscientious souls with the flames of compassion in their hearts shall one day change the course of human history.

The biggest mistake that parents make, is believing that their assigned task in life is to teach their children and to guide them in every situation of their children's lives. The truth is that it is the task of parents to both learn from their children and to guide them as well. Parenting is a relationship that goes both ways, from the moment your child is born, you learn from that person, and in fact, your lessons begin long before your child's lessons do. Later on, when you've learned a great deal already, then they begin to learn from you. Throughout our lives, it is a give-and-take relationship, in many ways. Our assigned task is to learn from our children, and to guide and teach them. Their assigned task is to learn from us, and also to teach us.

Every parent is an artist, for the bared canvas of a newborn__ soul begs for the artist__ touch. And because this is so, a parent must prepare the palette with the utmost care, choose the brushes with poised caution, and mindfully attend to every brushstroke regardless of how slight. And such caution is utterly imperative for the emerging rendering will be both a legacy borne of the parent, and a life lived by the child.

With the gentle force of their words, the dogged warmth of their embrace, and the assuring touch of souls softly bared, mothers are silently shaping whole societies and authoring entire cultures that sit poised on the horizon of the future. And although we ignorantly relegate such roles to some lower caste status, we would be wise to understand that the role of a mother sets the cadence of the future.

A parent holds within their hands the gift of a child to which they must expend the gift of themselves. And in such a monumental outpouring, the parent will lose both the child and the gifts given, but they will possess the far greater gift of knowing that they gave both.

One of a mother__ greatest gifts is to teach her child that to grow is not to timidly sit on some safe shore at water__ edge and clumsily grab whatever happens to float by. Rather, it is to deliberately step into waters both calm and turbulent in order to wrestle great things to shore. And that lesson can be best taught by a mother who stands before her child dripping wet.

All too soon the garden of childhood is paved cold with the asphalt roads of adulthood. And while it is not within her power to halt this unrelenting progression, a mother can diligently guard this most precious garden and insure that the roads become gentle paths that wind through it instead of byways that kill it.

Chilled ice tea that tempered tepid summer days lathered thick with humidity. Frothy hot chocolate that cut winter__ chill. Bedtime prayers that sent our fears scrambling in panicked flight. Golden bouquets of dandelions aromatically rich with the gift of summers scent. Family meals that wove yet another binding thread in and through the tapestry of those seated around the table. These are but the slightest sampling of the innumerable gifts my mother handed to this child of hers. And without them, my life would be impoverished beyond words to describe.

The child you hold in your arms is your gift to a future that you will not see. Therefore, we must turn a blind eye to ourselves and selflessly pour the best of ourselves into our children while rigorously sifting out the worst of ourselves. And once we are utterly spent by such daring gestures, we will shockingly discover the resulting emptiness as astonishingly filled.

Myriam and I are both hard workers, and together we make a strong team. We found ways to make a living, educate our children, and to take care of my parents until their last days, and we managed to have fun doing it. ...The friendships we made along the way were the biggest treasure of all.

It always gave me a peculiar feeling to catch a glimpse of my parents' lives before I was born.

You want to know the secret to raising good kids?___hat__ that? asked Thomas.__igh expectations.__homas laughed. __lright, well what__ the secret to a happy marriage?__lyde smiled back, but his face started to fall, and he chose his words carefully. __ Low expectations.

Feed your child ideas of peace, harmony and compassion but at the same time give them courage to defend their identity and dignity.

Being a mother is not about __irthing a child into the world._ Rather, it is about repeatedly __irthing into the child_ a steady sense of their inestimable worth, a prized understanding of their authentic self, a conviction that the impossible is largely the stuff of myth, and an utterly unwavering belief that the cold actions of men never represent the warm heart of God. It is the relentless act of birthing these things into the innermost soul of a thirsty child that makes a woman a mother.