mom of boys

To be a parent is something so unique and challenging. Every person experiences both childhood and parenting differently and there are so many factors. Isn't it crazy how our lives can shape exactly what type of parent we'll be and each experience contributes just a little bit more to how we will do things.

Isn't it crazy how our whole lives people are teaching us things. Things that we "need" to know but one thing there isn't much emphasis on teaching is RELATIONSHIPS and people.

It's weird because they're everywhere. We can't escape them. So why then is there so little on how we should properly interact with other humans if it is something so prominent in every person's life?

My opinion? People don't know what they don't know. We can't teach what we haven't first learned.

All I revert back to when thinking of relationships is I was never really taught a certain type of person that I should be around and a type I shouldn't be. Maybe that pertained to people's desire to stay away from being judgmental and assume the worst about a person.. or maybe it was and is a lack of Biblical understanding and application.

I know now as an adult, as a mother of two boys, as a wife that life and it's experiences heavily rely on who you are around day by day and what you choose to do with your time. If there is one thing I am learning continuously it is that the people you hang with matter. That choosing friends or the family members you want to constantly hang with -- is going to inevitably decide how you spend your time and how productive your life is.

My family never really had kinds of people to stay away from. We definitely heard about bad things that people did but it wasn't instilled that the people who choose these bad things continuously aren't the kind of person who is going to make your success easily obtainable.

I guess it is because of the things certain members of my family were doing to begin with. If it wasn't for the need to both love and accept certain family members doing bad things I think it would've been more of a topic of conversation as to what kind of person we shouldn't hang around.

In the family dynamic that I grew up in there were a lot of codependent relationships, enabling of bad decision making, and the support of terrible decision making to top it off. I think the definition of love got twisted up and we were being taught that if we loved someone we would, in fact, look in the other direction while they habitually did something and we will "mind our business." We will help those same people who are making a habit out of getting high to kill the pain while we will also help blur the lines of what REAL sobriety looks like.

It is tough for me, personally, to get away from addiction as it was something so prominent growing up. There were so many addicts addicted to so many different things. I could go on and on with story after story of the different folks who were and still are never sober but that would be beside the point. Now to stay sober in my adulthood, stay away from those who aren't sober, and parent my children in a way where they won't pick the addicts to surround themselves with.

I want to teach my children that they have a lot more control over their lives than my husband and I were taught. I want to teach them about people, relationships, addiction, and how this all plays a huge roll in just simply living life.

I am eager to sit down with my kids as often as need be and explain to them the struggle with wanting and needing to love our neighbor while also staying a safe distance away from certain neighbors who are behaving in a certain manor.

I want to teach my kids the impact that being in a romantic relationship has, what it will require of them, what they should look for in a partner, etc -- but I've only just started to realize that in order to teach it I must learn it.

I must practice it. I must be in active relationships to learn from as well as draw experiences and examples from.

I believe in order to be better parents and humans we must stop only doing what we witnessed or were taught and start doing some digging as to what is right and what we SHOULD be teaching our children.

Once I was saved by Jesus there was no more mystery of what I was supposed to be teaching Nico and Hunter. As long as I have a bible and I can draw from that I've got all that I need.