You do everything that you can to parent your child properly. You teach them the appropriate values, language, and manners. You try to be a role model in your speech, actions, and attitudes. But you can never completely shield them from the example set by others.
This point was brought home to me at the beach this weekend. While my son frolicked in the water with the other kids, some of the parents stood around yapping at the shoreline. One felt the need to start virtually every sentence with a 4-letter slang term for feces. Another butchered the English language with such gems as “Who ball dat is?” A third held her lit cigarette in the same hand that she used to drag her three year old around the beach.
Much as I wanted to tell that first young woman to watch her language in front of the kids, I knew that I couldn’t for two reasons. One – it would probably have sent her off on an obscenity-laden rampage far worse than what she had subjected us to. Two – you just can’t talk to people about their parenting.
Funny thing about our culture – you can criticize people for a lot of things, but you just can’t question anyone’s parenting skills. Nobody is a bad parent, even if they have unmistakably bad children. Yes, kids make their own choices, but parents set the boundaries. Parents set and enforce the consequences. Parents are the example and the guiding force in the lives of their children.
Whenever I see a young offender on the evening news for committing some heinous act, I can’t help but wonder where the parents are. How do kids get so far off track by 13 or 14 years old? The answer, unpopular as it may be in politically-correct modern America, is the parents.
So, we’re back to where we started. We look around and see parents are failing their children at an alarming rate. But it seems that all we can do is be the best parents we can be to our own children.
Great post! I think this all the time.