Comfort...it is like honey for the soul...

When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. In other words, make the best you can with what you've got, right? Applying this cliche is not that simple when it comes to raising my children and so many of my self imposed parental expectations. I suppose this is most likely a common denominator with many other parents too, although I have not done any kind of survey to validate my assumption. I was raised in such a manner that my own programming, if you will, was encoded with achieving higher than average goals in my life. Mediocrity was not an option, much less the concept of aiming any lower than my abilities. To try to do anything other than my best was never a choice and if you want my humble opinion, this mentality has served me well throughout my entire life. So how do I negotiate this conflicting mental process with an entire generation gap that has found a way to avoid making any effort to assimilate the values of their predecessors? Is it worth my own effort to constantly try to infuse what I know in my heart to be good lessons to my children regardless of how dim their perception and reception might seem at the time?

Good parenting gives me a drive to keep plugging into my children every positive and apparently successful influence that my own parents offered me. The question is really not about how effective this might be at some point in their lives since the verdict is still out and will be out to be witnessed much later in their lives. The question is what this constant influx of personal conditioning does to us parents in the end? In other words, what do I personally gain or lose from my relentless efforts to influence my children with lessons that almost seem like dust in the wind to their eyes? I am not going to do any grand standing and profess to be able to keep it up on an every day basis, this would be as big a lie as telling you that there really is a Santa Claus. In fact, what I will tell you is that every once in a while I just lift up my hands and say "uncle," and I let go for a while realizing that my persistence is many times futile and I have to take time to recharge in order to have the energy to do it again later on.

I many times feel like my kids actually think that on one end I am Superman, and nothing affects me enough to damage me in any significant way. On the other end sometimes I feel like my kids think that I am Forest Gump, full of weaknesses and disabilities that make me unsuited to teach them anything at all. How can anyone spend any reasonable amount of time feeling the imposition of both of these persona's without it making a dent on their emotional well being? Parenting is not for the weak, no sir, not at all. The level of self motivation for good parenting must be proportional to the level of self healing of the parent's emotional shield. To be effective in any significant way I must be able to recharge myself emotionally in the middle of what almost seems a battle of wills. No wonder so many mothers suffer emotional breakdowns after having expended so much of themselves giving birth. It seems reasonable to assume that any significant imbalance in a mother's hormonal state would wreak havoc on her mental ability to recover quickly enough to take on so many of the expected tasks in her role as a mother. I believe that regardless of gender, there is no simple solution to improving the odds of parental recovery when it all comes to blows between parents and kids. I am sure that even though complete shelves have probably been written on volumes with regard to improving your emotional well being, the reality of how the new generations have evolved is probably too new to allow any author to give one hundred percent valid and effective advice. So what do we do? How do we find the answer to this complicated and risky business of effective parenting of the current generation of children that are already here?

If you are reading and cannot relate to the above, chances are that your children are either already past the age in which their demands are beyond your parental responsibility, or they are too young for you to have tasted this reality. Don't get me wrong, some kids will walk through their parent's life with very little effect in the way of serious parental concern. However, some of us are not so fortunate and are facing a great deal of challenges on a daily basis that is most definitely not the fault of poor parenting. If you are reading and can truly feel a connection with my words, then you need to know that you are not alone. In the past few years I have learned to appreciate how fortunate I am even within my parental struggles, since it is always apparent by sharing with many other parents that things can always get a lot worse. This might feel hard to believe, but it is very true indeed. It is not as much that "misery loves company," it is more like "welcome to the club."

I have struggled throughout the years to find not only answers to the challenges I have faced while parenting my boys, but also to keep my sanity while in the middle of the toughest moments. If you have been reading my blog you probably have already picked up a lot of hints that I have left in my posts that give you a pretty good idea as to how I have been able to survive and slowly make progress towards either fixing or accepting some of those challenges. In retrospect I feel blessed that I have family and friends that constantly contribute to nourishing my sense of emotional well being. This, I believe is probably the key that keeps my insanity option locked away. Without the clever advice of some, and the wonderful love of others, I would most likely be a permanent occupant of some padded room in a mental facility. You might think I exaggerate, but I am not sure that there truly is any hyperbola in my self assessment equation. In fact, this is today's word of wisdom...Take the time to share your parental challenges with the people that care and love you...inside them you will find what it is that you need to stay sane. There is no magic pill, no all inclusive book of advice, and definitely no totally right answers. What you should be able to find to stay on track during the hard times is comfort. We all need comfort when we are losing our will and energy to keep being good parents. It might seem trivial, but kind words are like honey for the soul. It soothes our soar and itchy lives in ways that nothing else can.

If you are past the most challenging parts of your parenting life, find it in yourself to bring some comforting words to those around you that might not be there yet. If you are in the middle of it all, make an effort to connect with those that are around you that can help because it is a lot easier to deal with the hard times when we are not doing it all alone. If you are beginning your journey of parenting and still have not found it hard enough, trust me, this is the time for you to make good friends, keep yourself connected to family members that love you, and pave the road for good relations and open communication with them all in case your road gets a lot bumpier later on. I have yet to find anything more useful to deal with my parenting challenges than the comfort and advice of those that truly care for my well being. The more friendly bees you have in your life, the more soothing honey you will have access to for your soul. Trust me, I know what I am talking about.

Dad