“And I speak of educating sons without having a father myself”
I am not a parent, but I am planning to become one, some day, not anytime in the near future, but some day. So if you planned or are planning to become a parent, a question that definitely popped up in your head was: “How can a woman’s vagina stretch so much?” and “How can I be a good parent?” so don’t worry, I am here to give you an insight in the head of your kid. So I want to talk about two things: how we forget that we were once in the son/daughter position and what I think, from a son position, is a good way to raise a kid.
A bit of a background story: My mom was 18 when she had me, my dad was 15, and yeah, I was a mistake (which probably explains all my issues; you’ll never know if I’m joking or not). My dad became an alcoholic at 17, fought with my mom and left. I lived with my mom and grandma, moved to Canada with my mom when I was 4, stayed in Canada for almost 2 years until my mom decided that she could do better and provide better for me if she was by herself, sent me back home. She used to send money to my grandma for my upbringing. I saw my mom until my grandma passed away, when I was 15. Couple of months after my grandma’s death I came back to Canada to live with my mom. I now have a 4-year-old sister, and a 1-month-old brother
So now that you know how unstable my upbringing was then I leave it up to you as to how accurate and valid you think my advice can be. From my experience, I could have turned out a lot worse. Now I will share with you some of the things you can do so that your kid has the same qualities I do, but also some of the things you shouldn’t do if you want to avoid some of the issues I have.
Be Prepared to Have a Kid
Yeah, I know, I started with the first one my parents fucked up. If you are not prepared to have a baby, then don’t have one. If this has never happened to you I’ll give you an idea: imagine one day you wake up ready to have a great day, you take a shower, you dress up nicely, you put some nice cologne, and as soon as you open the door you discover that God has decided to send another flood upon your city; that is how you would feel when you discover you gonna have a baby and you are not ready, this is probably and over simplification, but you get the point.
If you didn’t plan to have a baby, you cannot be ready to love the baby, you cannot be ready to provide for the baby, and you will just fuck up. There are no more restful nights of sleep, there are no more outings with friends, no more movie night, you are lucky if you can get 5 hours of uninterrupted peace, but you have to be ready to give up almost everything in your life to make that baby feel loved. If you do or have any of the things I mentioned above after you have a kid you are already fucking up.
You and Your Partner Are a Team
Raising a baby is pretty much like playing any sport (except that the court is on fire, and the ball is on fire, and everything is on fire): you have to be able to rely on your teammate, but you also have to pull your own weight. But you have to be careful here because doing to much can take your partner to do nothing and the opposite is also true.
Remember that your relationship is the crib in which that baby is going to rest. Your priority, even before the baby, has to be to give enough support, love and attention to your partner, to build a strong and loving relationship; once you have achieved that, believe me that when you work together, the rest works out easily.
Do Not Be Your Kids Friend
You are the parent, not his buddy, not his bff, no, nothing, you are nothing but the parent, I cannot stress that enough.
Your kids don’t need to find a friend in you, they’ll have friends in school, in the neighborhood, and pretty much everywhere they go, they are kids, their nature is to be friendly. A friend cannot tell him or her what to do, but a parent can. He or she can punch, scream, and insult a friend, but not a parent. I have heard a lot of times this bullshit of “you have to be their friend so they can trust you and blah blah blah”. NO. DON’T.
Being a parent is the opposite of being a friend. It’s inspiring trust, but with respect and attitude, it’s teaching and guiding, it’s loving unconditionally, it’s protecting and providing. Being a friend is doing stupid shit that you will remember with humor in the future, is doing the opposite of what your parents tell you, is telling each other secrets that nobody else knows.
There is a line that separates this from an unhealthy relationship and knowing where that line is is important. For instance, your son shouldn’t hide from you the fact that he killed someone, but he could hide that he skipped school to go chill with his friends. Your kids are gonna have secrets, they are gonna do the opposite of what you tell them, but that is a sign of a healthy child, that is a sign that they are creating their own identity.
You Were Not Born in Your 30’s
I get it, now you are a wise and omniscient father or mother, but aside from the fact that this would have been really painful for your mother, you were not born as an adult and you have to remember that you were a kid once.
You also did things that you were not supposed to do, you talked to that friend your mom told you not to talk to, you went out with that boy your dad didn’t like, maybe you even did drugs and drank when you were not supposed to and now you are making your kid feel like shit because he or she is also doing the things you did? smells like hypocrisy here.
Look, I get that as a parent you want the best for us, better things that you have and follow a path better than the one you followed, but that does not take away the fact that we also want to make mistakes, we also want to spend our money in stupid ways, we also want to idiotically fall in love with the wrong person. I am not justifying the stupid behavior that some kids have, but I am justifying the normal mistakes that every human being has to make in order to grow and learn. If you take the time to know the differences between punishable behavior and normal mistake, then you will have succeeded as a parent. I am also not saying that there are some bad things that are permissible, but there are a range of disciplinary actions that as a parent you can take according to the wrong-doing of your child.
I grew up getting my ass beaten by my grandma. There are some things that I really thank her for, because I really needed that piece of wood across my back, but there are some things that I would have understood with a simple talk. I guess my advice would be: punish your kid, always, cause they are stupid and they need to learn, but know how to do it; know that good and bad are a spectrum not just black and white.
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