Child’s Chance to Choice

A few of my bloggin’ buddies have been posting their “Code’s of Life” lately, namely one Rory Blyth and Tao Cowboy. It’s enough to make one want to join the philosophizing and reflecting party (woo!).

Moonglow Ultima 4Mostly my views have grown and changed as I’ve wandered through life. I’ve never been one for holding onto an idea once it’s proven not to work for me. One thing that’s remained a constant is importance placed on honesty. Being true to oneself and others to me is as big as the inhabitants of Moonglow in the world of Britannia (screen shot from Ultima IV).

Honesty might have been even more important to me growing up. Let’s face it, most adults are anything but honest with children. I’m not talking about Santa Clause, I’m talking about the lies designed to protect us. I resented that kind of dishonesty as much as the malicious kind. Whether or not we as adults want to admit it, the effect can be as, if not more, devastating than any truth told. Kids will find out the truth later when they grow into adulthood, or more likely, much sooner than you’d like. When this lie is told the truth can be found in an embarrassing, painful, or even dangerous manner. One of my first thoughts goes to my mom who had my older brother when she was fifteen. I know the people in her life thought they were protecting her by keeping her ignorant about the birds and the bees, but really what they did is deprive her of a choice.

People think children aren’t old enough to make choices, and perhaps no one is. However, in life we are forced to make choices that we are no prepared to. This happens all the time. I hope that if I have children I’ll do everything I can to give them the ammunition to make choices wisely when life forces them to. Above all, I hope they don’t have to make tough calls, but they will. We can’t be there every second to chose for them, and knowledge is power.

Victor and DeannaI hope this for my younger siblings, one who just had her last day of high school, the other who is in his preteen years. I know that I am a big influence in their lives and that they are listening to me and looking to me for influence, even when they are pretending or trying not to. We learn from our surroundings, especially the things we give credence to. I might just be another person, but I’m also a role model and example whether or not I want to be.

I believe in the power of honesty and I believe in the power of learning, and to me they are one in the same. If you’re smart enough to ask the question, you deserve honest input, even if (and especially) the answer isn’t certain. There I think is the key to personal growth and betterment in this life.

My younger of my siblings is eleven. People have described him as a smartass and too smart for his own good. It’s true. I remember being described that way when I was his age. I remember being eleven and all the things I knew and was dealing with that my parents didn’t know. It’s hard to look at him and think that he might have some of the same heavy issues in his own life. It’s hard to look at him and consider he might have even harder decisions to make than I did. I know he’ll learn things from other sources, popular culture and his peers. I know he might absorb all the wrong things if I don’t speak up and even more, listen. I know I can’t learn for him and he will have to make his own mistakes, but I hope they are harmless and few. I listen and when he asks, I try to give him the best, most honest answer I can give. I’m trying to give him a fighting chance to make the right decisions. Without real information about the world around him, how is he going to have chance?

Beyond that, I want to teach him the value of honesty with my own example. He will become his own person regardless. He’ll find his own life code and values. He’ll have his own obstacles and choices. Even if I don’t see it, I know he has them right now. Every day he’s forming new opinions, testing the waters, and becoming more independent. I’ll always be here to tell him truthfully what I think and I hope one day he will return the favor by doing the same for others well into adulthood.

As for my sister, who is just like me and just the opposite of me in so many ways, I’m proud of her. Sure, she doesn’t hold dear all of the same things that I do, and she’s made a million choices I would never have. All the same, she’s doing better than okay. She’s reached the official United States definition of adulthood: eighteen. She has her High School Diploma. She is attending Anna Maria college in the fall. She works. She has a ton of friends. She’s a great cook and musician. She’s made it. She’s is doing well. I know I can’t take credit for the person she’s become, but I still like to think that I did okay in my part in her upbringing. I was right to trust her to hear all I had to say and make all the tough choices she’s had to up to this point. Life is not easy, and making it this far doing well and no small accomplishment.

Parent Pressure Balance or Break

 

Warning: contents under pressure. Additional pressure may result in blowing up or petering out: in short, getting absolutely nothing productive done.

 

Painful areas

I know that for many people, a small amount of external stress can be a motivational tool. For people like me, I need very little. I might be slightly allergic. When I get too much I become sluggish, have trouble breathing, and have urges to watch stupid television (even without basic cable). I am naturally instilled with a love of working and learning. As a backup, I also come standard with a guilt complex that makes me do things even when nobody is watching. Get your own Cindy for only x/hr plus vacation days and benefits. She will get what she was supposed to done, do it well, or will lose sleep trying. You need not do anything except occasionally smile at her. Giving her cookies may increase productivity.

 

I’ve heard parents are supposed to know their children the best. They’re supposed to be able to push the buttons that make the child do what they want when they want it. If this is so, most parents (or children) are broken. How do they get busy child to clean her room? Well, they think, let’s treat her like she’s an insolent slob and shame her. Let’s threaten her. Said child goes to start cleaning their room, and then gets treated like an insolent slob or punished. Suddenly, child doesn’t want to clean their room and won’t, where she would have before if you’d just asked. Parent’s take note. If you push too hard in one direction, your children, no matter how far into adult hood they wander, will push the opposite way. Or, the will fall down. The direction does not matter.

 

I recently moved back to the area I’m origionally from. I’ve been gone about five years. In those five years I somehow managed to find a steady stream of interesting work, while I was still a student even. I aimed high managed to not work at fast food chains. Even for the worst of those jobs, I sometimes had to spend weeks looking and not getting the jobs I sometimes felt I was over-qualified for. Sometimes I got it on the first try.

 

Now I’m doing this song and dance again. I have a degree, refrences, and work to show for it. Still I don’t have fifty people breaking down my door asking me to work for them for $60,000 a year. This is no suprise to me, but it’s still a lot of pressure. Additional pressure is not needed at this time. I can read my bank statements and bills. I understand enough math to know how interest works.

 

I know I’m not the only person that is going, or has gone, through this.

 

So this is to all parents out there. If you want us to become productive, independent beings who will take care of you some day, first you have to have confidence that we can do things. Even people who don’t appear to be completely ego ridden and narcissistic are hard enough on themselves when they are trying. We need parents to be on the team cheering for us, especially past childhood, even more since we aren’t even on that team.

 

Show your confidence in us by not telling us what to do. You may think you aren’t, but your disapproving head, shaking suggestions might as well be mind control. Even though you, the parents, are the pillars of success and all that is right in the world, you got there by figuring it out on your own. Chances are, you ignored your own parents and still do to this day.

 

Parents out there, we appreciate that you help us all you can. Take us out for meals, make us care packages, and listen to our trails and tribulations without god-like judgment. However, be sure what you’re giving us is help. Don’t weigh us down with extra pressure, because we’re trying to learn to solely help ourselves, and that pressure alone could very well make us stand still, fall, or break.

 

This has been a public service announcement- brought to you by non-ham-like ham (but not spam) and the letter Y.

 

Poke me gently. I’m under a little pressure.

 

Oh, and I think the interview went well. Thanks for asking.