Parents tend to judge their parenting based on “big things.” By “big things,” I mean major events and accomplishments — getting the child baptized, getting them through college, getting them married well, keeping them off drugs, etc. But it has been my experience that “little things,” daily spiritual maintenance and life guidance, tend very strongly to lead to the “big things.”
We ship Kylie back to college this week. It’s sad on multiple levels. But it is part of the process of watching a young person grow up. On the whole, it would be much, much sadder if it didn’t happen. If I tell Tracie that enough times, maybe she will start to believe me.
Infertility is an inherited trait, according to a recent study. I am going to let you read that again at your own pace. Take it in. I’ll wait.
It is trendy these days to admonish millennials into better practice of what is being termed “adulting.” Basic skills such as cooking, shopping, laundry, auto maintenance, and the like are being neglected. As a result, a generation is going off to college unable to boil an egg or sew a button.
The cry goes out from far and wide to bring back home economics classes, shop classes, and financial literacy classes. Get our schools to empower our children so they will have a chance of coping in a world that will soon try to eat them alive.
When giving parenting advice, I have gotten reactions that fall almost completely into one of two categories. One, the listeners will wholeheartedly agree with me; this indicates that my advice mimics what they are already doing or what they are determined to do when the situation calls for it. Two, the listeners will ignore me; this means they disagree with me and have no intention of changing — and that they likely see me and my ilk as the cause of the downfall of society. That’s fair, I guess, since it’s what I think of them.
