Parents must lose their fear of "losing out" to "today," and remember that they have much to offer children.

Contributed By:Dorothy Nevils

“You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” Right off the bat, that sounds like an oxymoron, for, how can you eat your cake, or any cake, for that matter, if you don’t have the cake in the first place? But, what it says is this: If you eat your cake, you’ll no longer have it!

Parents are a bit hesitant to be parents. After all, if they do it right, what are folks gonna think? They’ll lose that sticky stuff that “today” has convinced them make them parents.

When I was growing up, parenthood meant a whole different game. Raised that way, I mimicked some of it. I regret some of its hanging on, but maturity, adding wisdom to experience, forced a change, for the better, I am sure.

We’d expect that. Experience is the greatest teacher. However, there’s something else playing now that didn’t play that way a few years back, a real game changer. Nothing like it ever was… except a few years back. It’s called progress. It’s where everything is turned loose, nullified, blowing in the wind...

Raising children is difficult. There is so much competition for parents. Clothes are high on the list. Smart phones and gadgets vie for kids’ attention. Everything ranks higher than parents, so they find themselves competing, trying to win brownie points.

In the process, they lose all that defines them as parents. But, the biggest losers are the next generation. Their parents, now just outdated “friends,” forego what sets them apart, what places them ahead. They give up their power to lead, to teach, to be the most important people in their children’s lives.

They give up the chance to teach them, to steer them around the snares that life, just like it’s always done for the inexperienced, sets up for them. They distrust their own wisdom, thinking that working a gadget takes more brains than cutting down household expenses, that emojies are superior to words.

Parents must lose their fear of “losing out” to today, and remember that they have much to offer children. As Jimmy Ruffin sang, they’ve “passed this way before.” They have a history, one they’ve lived, and one they’ve inherited from a long, long line of other parents. They must value that which they’ve learned, and see that their children, too, value it.

So, what do you as a parent have that “today” doesn’t? Think about it, really, really, hard. What can you “give” your child, your grandchild, and any other child in your life that nobody, let alone a “gadget” made in China, can?

Think about all that you know. Think about your experiences. Think about the things that made you who you are… and the things that didn’t.

Give that child love. Give that child discipline, keeping in mind always that discipline means guidance, laying down for that child a path worthy of being followed. Lay down for your child, whether yours by birth, or a “gathered” child, a road worth traveling, a road clearly marked with honesty, responsibility, respect, and love for others.

Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t sell your children short. Once they get a taste of what you have to offer, life will be sweeter for everybody.

Story Posted:01/27/2017