I’ve been wondering a lot lately about how people perceive themselves. This was triggered in me when I noticed some rather offensive facebook material that left me pondering words none other than this…“and to think that these people are and/or will be parents” {insert cringe here}. As people leave racial and highly cynical remarks all over the pages of cyberspace, I can’t help but feel tempted to ask them if that’s the sort of thing that they would want to be passing on to our world’s most impressionable. It’s as though becoming adults has left us the freedom of financial and personal responsibility but we’ve disregarded the higher and more important responsibility…that which is owed to those other than ourselves.
I don’t have children of my own but I don’t think that you need to be a parent to acknowledge that a lot of time is spent being very cautious about the people who influence the children in your life. You want them to mingle with the “right” crowd, go to the “right” schools, preferably grow up in the “right” neighborhoods and yet all the while, how often do we consider if we, ourselves, are people that we would want our children spending time with? Do we demonstrate the same values and morals that we would want our children to learn or do we leave it up to those “right” people and places to do that for us?
Of course, we’d all like to think that we play our part but I’m really starting to wonder. If I had children, would I want them to demonstrate the same self-criticism that I have towards myself or expect discipline from them that I have yet to achieve? Simple answer; probably! And why not? We always want the best for the children in our lives, right? But then I find myself wondering whether or not that’s a fair expectation to put on any child; to expect them to learn despite our own example? Simple answer: no!
All this to say that I’ve taken this realization as an opportunity to attempt at curbing some of my own behaviour based on the “would I want my child to see this?” theory! It’s one thing to do something and judge it as right or wrong by your own standards but it’s entirely different to do so when you’re considering the influence on future generations. Perhaps next time I’m tempted to exude my judgement or my jealousy, I’ll imagine the future “mini me” standing alongside and maybe that will be motivation enough to reconsider what kind of mark I really want to leave on the world…
I don’t have children of my own but I don’t think that you need to be a parent to acknowledge that a lot of time is spent being very cautious about the people who influence the children in your life. You want them to mingle with the “right” crowd, go to the “right” schools, preferably grow up in the “right” neighborhoods and yet all the while, how often do we consider if we, ourselves, are people that we would want our children spending time with? Do we demonstrate the same values and morals that we would want our children to learn or do we leave it up to those “right” people and places to do that for us?
Of course, we’d all like to think that we play our part but I’m really starting to wonder. If I had children, would I want them to demonstrate the same self-criticism that I have towards myself or expect discipline from them that I have yet to achieve? Simple answer; probably! And why not? We always want the best for the children in our lives, right? But then I find myself wondering whether or not that’s a fair expectation to put on any child; to expect them to learn despite our own example? Simple answer: no!
All this to say that I’ve taken this realization as an opportunity to attempt at curbing some of my own behaviour based on the “would I want my child to see this?” theory! It’s one thing to do something and judge it as right or wrong by your own standards but it’s entirely different to do so when you’re considering the influence on future generations. Perhaps next time I’m tempted to exude my judgement or my jealousy, I’ll imagine the future “mini me” standing alongside and maybe that will be motivation enough to reconsider what kind of mark I really want to leave on the world…
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