Now I'm sure that not all of those sites are strictly parenting books. In fact, one of the sites on the first page was exclusively devoted to listing their favorite parenting books. I am amazed by the response and the fact that there has been so much written about parenting.
Is parenting that confusing? Or is it that no one really knows what works? Is this parenting thing such a mystery that it's more confusing than say oceans (1,870,000 sites). Surely there has been more written on Jesus than on parenting. A Google leads me to 5,710,000 sites. How about Presidents? When I googled "books on Presidents" I received 6,710,000 sites listed.
Hum...
Surely Algebra would be more confusing than parenting. It is for me anyway. But a Google for Algebra books only gave me 1,810,000 sites.
Apparently parenting is extremely confusing. Let me help you simplify parenting.
1. Once you have a child it is your responsibility to know right from wrong. You must know how to act in order to get the right response in any situation.
2. You must be willing to teach right and wrong to your child.
That's it. Mystery solved. That's all there is to it.
It gets sticky when we include all the gray areas of teaching right and wrong. Do I force this? Do I make my child learn something that I think is right but someone else may think is wrong? How do I teach this? Should I be easy going or should I be tough?
To answer all those questions let me add two more points.
1. Always parent for the future. Your child is depending on you to show him how to navigate through life. He's depending on you to give him the tools he will need to have a good life. Don't let something get by you at age two that will cause your child a problem at age 22. Make sure all the right and wrongs you teach will protect and help your child when he is older.
2. Every thing you do must be with love and compassion. It is not loving or compassionate to raise a spoiled brat that others in the world will not like, will not help and if they marry will surely divorce them for their bratty ways. It is much more loving and compassionate to help your child have an easy time living and working with others. In other words, compassion is not the same as spoiling your child.
Compassion many times will mean extra work, discipline and saying no. Let's say your child wanted to touch a hot stove. You have used the stove to fix meals and you know the value of using heat to your advantage. So in reality you don't have a problem with heat. You determine that heat is not "wrong". But your compassion and not wanting your child to be hurt forces you to say "no".
Maybe the real problem with parenting is that so many adults don't know right from wrong and can't make sense of their own lives. How can you teach something that you don't know yourself????
Hum.....
So really most of the parenting books are probably teaching parents how to distinguish right from wrong rather than actually helping the child? Hum....
The bottom line is that parenting is the only way to change the future.
When we raise a child that understands the world and understands how to properly function in the world - he is set free to make the most of his talent and to help make the future better. When we fail at our jobs, the world suffers. The world is then filled with dysfunctional people who will breed more dysfunctional people and will leave this world worse than it was before they arrived.
Preachers can't preach us into a better world.
Presidents can't legislate us into a better world.
Singers can't sing us into a better world
and
writers can't write us into a better world.
Parenting is the only way to change the future and change the world.
What do you think?
God loves you,
Debbie
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