Taming your inner demon

[Taem]

A good childhood is a very important thing for a good life, but it is also good to read how you single-handedly make sure your life is going the right way, and making sure your kids will not have the same upbringing you had.

They never – nor will they ever – have anything close to the same upbringing I had. In a lot of ways, I feel like my children live a sheltered life, but then I step back and realize it’s only because mine was unbridled.

While raising my own children, I’ve always reflected on all my choices and did what I knew to be right. All too often, you hear of kids who grow up in a dysfunctional family and grew up just like their parents, or the opposite, kids who grow up and decide to be completely opposite of how their parents raised them and let their kids run amok or lay down the law with a belt. Since as long as I can remember, I never understood why people couldn't see how they were acting, why they didn't realize they were acting just as irresponsible as their parents?!? Let me backtrack a little; I can really only explain this with an anecdotal reference, so bear with me:

When I was young, since I was alone more times than not, I often watched families spending quality time together and I knew mine wasn't normal. I saw how parents interacted with their children and I realized from a very young age, probably too soon, that my parents were just people, not the gods that many youths see their parents as. I grew up knowing, as far back as I can remember, that I would grow up to be an adult and even though I was younger than my parents, we had free will and were capable of living our lives the way we wanted, so I saw them as equals and saw their faults and selfishness for what it was. I know, it’s crazy that a child could foster such thoughts, but nonetheless I did. So when I saw my father with his problems and my mom with hers, I knew I didn't want to be like that and I choose not to. I thought everyone could see things the way I saw them, to understand like me when I was growing up, but I found out sadly, most people can’t see the forest through the trees. I think this is also why I felt guilty when bullies picked on me; I felt like I deserved it because I knew they saw something in me they didn't like about themselves.

While growing up, I had what I’d consider a dysfunctional family, yet (after that incident) I choose to make my own decisions and even though I lived like a maniac in my youth, once I found my wife and had a reason to live, I choose to live a moral life based on my personal reflections and, regardless of what you may or may not believe in, there is a force, an understanding inherent to all of us, and when we do things where others benefit in a non-selfish way, we are bombarded with positive energy, and when we partake in purely selfish acts we are influenced by negative energy.

[Warning: about to get preachy]
This experience is felt inside all of us as a lifting, high experience for positive energy, or a sinking, pulling experience for negative energy, but I wouldn’t call it “good” or “bad” because I believe everything what we do is done purely for survival purposes stemming from our beginnings with RNA*.
[/preachy]
*It's interesting how RNA infused minerals behave like animals protecting their “offspring” and engaging in behavior similar to living creatures. Here's some links on RNA if you're interested: RNA, Life

Let’s steer this back on track: With my own children, I will sit and listen to them when they want to talk to me, I go out of my way to play with them even when I’m tired, I encourage them, I never raise my voice at them unless they get into trouble, and when they do get in trouble, we sit down and talk about what they’ve done, the choices they made to get them in trouble, why they made that decision, and how that decision might’ve affected others, and finally how they might change that aspect of their personality going forward to be a better person.

So why aren’t I more like my parents? My kids are nothing like I was when I was young because while my wife and I may still argue, we don’t fight (although we did a handful of times the first couple years of marriage, but who doesn't) and our disagreements are more discussions on understanding as we found that ironically most of the time we have the same opinion, but just a different method of getting there so we compromise. My wife and I have mutual respect for one another and share in all the household responsibilities. We are open and honest with one another, and most importantly we are still in love after over 17 years of marriage! I see it in my children’s eyes; they are happy, and they know we love them, and each other.