Hi folks, I’m Hattie Collier and I’d like to say, let’s be serious. Would you go to any hospital and apply for a nursing job if you have not received medical training? Would anyone in your family hire you as a lawyer knowing that you did not have a law degree? Would you choose an auto mechanic as your dentist? Exactly! This is common sense stuff; but thousands, maybe millions, of people masquerade as parents when they don’t have the sense that God gave a goose.
Just the other day, I heard a woman say that when her daughter’s boyfriend comes over, she knows that they have sex in her daughter’s room. You could have knocked me over with a feather. This woman actually allows this to occur in her home. Her excuse was that if her daughter had sex at home, she would be in a safe environment. She wouldn’t be in the back seat of a car or in some seedy motel. If she were home, her mother wouldn’t have to worry about where she was.
I said, “Well mom, let’s not forget to break out the champagne and put a mint on the pillow. If you’re going to run a brothel, you might as well make it comfortable”. Does my reply say that I’m down on mothers that are trying to provide good, clean, sexual entertainment for their kids? You’d better believe it! And it doesn’t stop with sex. There are those parents who provide alcohol for their underage children. They throw parties so their children’s friends can drink as well.
Believe me, it’s not just movie stars and celebrities that provide drugs for their little darlings. Whatever Junior or Sally wants, by all means let them have it in the safety of their own home. Mom and Dad may even join in on one or all of the above. Is this good parenting? I don’t think so.
Just like you wouldn’t hire an unqualified nurse, doctor, lawyer or auto mechanic, you should turn down the job of being a parent if you don’t have the backbone to be one. Heck, some kids have more gumption than their parents and they’re a lot smarter too—or at least more manipulative.
Let me break it down for you: you are a parent because you pay′rent. It’s your house! The kids just have temporary residence until they grow up. That means you pay the bills so you set the rules. You decide what is and isn’t the right behavior. You decide what is and isn’t allowed. The Good Book says train up a child in the way they should go so that when they’re old they won’t depart from it. Did you notice it said ‘the way they should go’. Not the way they want to go or the way society or their friends say they ought to go.
I can hear some of you whining, “What if they get mad at me?” What if they do? If kids knew so much God would have made it so they came into the world fully grown.
So, I say put down the how-to-raise-a happy-well-adjusted-child-that-thinks-his-parents-are-cool-because-they-party-together books. Stand up on your hind legs, look them in the eye and tell them whose boss. They may not like it and they may not like you but this too shall pass.
Love your children more than you want to be liked by them. Don’t spare the rod or you’ll spoil the child.
Stop right there. Before you stomp off in a hissy fit, I’m not suggesting that you beat your kids three times a day. What I’m saying is that your “rod” is whatever method you use to demonstrate to your kids that you make the rules and you expect them to be kept.
Raising a child properly is work. Your job is not to provide a comfortable sexual experience, keep the booze flowing, or provide the best high your child ever had. After all, think about the kind of example you are setting. No matter what they say, your child will eventually figure out that allowing such behavior was not a help.
If you spend the money to educate your children to be a doctor, lawyer, or auto mechanic, shouldn’t you first take the time to educate them on being good, moral citizens of the world? It won’t cost nearly as much and it pays off in even bigger dividends.
So muse on that.
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