For all of the young couples out there, I'm here to tell you that the business of being a parent is every bit as difficult, frustrating and exhausting as you may have heard. Doing it right, or at least trying to do it right, is a 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days per year job. Being a parent will be the greatest source of stress, worry and heartache you will ever experience. And despite all of that--despite all of the work, the worry, the terrible twos, the teen years and the "you're too old to understand what I'm going throughs"--I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Along with my wife, my daughters (Brittany and Caitlin) and my son (John III) have brought me more happiness, pride and joy than I could ever have imagined.
My wife and I have been very fortunate in that all three of our children appear to be well on their way to leading happy and successful lives. Our daughter, Brittany, was graduated in the top of her class from law school at the University of Texas, and is currently the Senior Law Clerk for United States District Court Judge Sam Sparks in Austin. Our son, John III, will graduate from WVU later this month with a double major in psychology and philosophy, after which he intends to pursue a Ph.D. in biomedical ethics. Our daughter, Caitlin, graduated from WVU with a degree in psychology, and is currently a first-year medical student at the WV School of Osteopathic Medicine. By all appearances, we must have done something right in the process of raising our children. With that in mind, I have a few suggestions for the young parents out there. I certainly don’t (and couldn’t) profess to be a perfect parent, but there are a few things I have learned are important.
Understand that it is your job to be a parent, not a friend. Your children will have plenty of friends, and you can’t always be one of them. Sometimes, being a parent means you have to be the bad guy. My mother always told me that a parent has to love his children enough to teach them right from wrong, even when doing so may hurt. She proved her commitment to that principle when she turned me in to Assistant Principal Trembush when I skipped a day of school during my senior year at JM. She cried when she did it, but she did it anyway. It was the right thing to do.
Allow your children to fail. I have seen lots of situations where parents thought they were doing the right thing in “helping” a child to finish homework or complete a project. It’s fine to guide your child toward finding the right answer or making the right revision on his own. It’s another thing entirely to become so involved that the parent is essentially doing the work for the child. Your children need to learn how to handle failure just as much as they need to learn how to achieve success.
Teach your children to be kind—to everyone. Few things can be as powerful as a simple random act of kindness. We have all seen incidents of children being less than kind to one another. Some parents write off such behavior as “kids being kids”. I disagree. Mean kids, more often than not, grow up to be mean adults. I have yet to hear anyone suggest that we need more mean people in the world. Kindness counts, and it’s important that our children see us setting an appropriate example.
Encourage your children to reach for the stars. Children need to have the confidence to push themselves beyond what they perceive to be their limits. Kids who have no self-confidence will give up at the first sign of defeat. Those who have the confidence to believe they can accomplish anything with perseverance and determination will push forward through the pain and frustration of loss. I always told my children they could be anything they wanted to be in life; they simply had to set their mind and work. Since they have grown, I came across a quote that perfectly sums up this thought: “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”
Finally, and most importantly, understand that as wild and hectic as your time as the parent of a young child may be, in the end it will be over before you know it, so treasure every single moment. My parents always said I would never understand how deeply a parent loves a child until I became a parent myself. They were certainly right about that. Now, let’s talk about grandchildren. . . .
