While we have to go to work and do all our daily duties as parents, we stay in movement not really questioning that movement. We may even gain a sense of guilt for slowing down and placing fun over what needs to be done. We as a society turned into machines. We act and react, and do it again without question.
We want the best for our children, we want them to have more than we did. We don’t want them to suffer as what we saw as suffering at their age, we spend much time protecting them. We are protecting them based on our free will and perspective, our accumulation of experiences. The question is, are we doing a good job? Does doing a good job as a parent really matter at all?
Little girls are taught how to be taken care of and protected. Some as I, are taught what lack of protection feels like. Regardless, little girls are taught to be taken care of, or how not to be taken care of. Most times little girls are not taught how to be providers. How to stand as a man, to be able to protect themselves. Little girls are not taught that they can stand alone. We want our little girls to be protected, we swoop them up under our wings and hope to keep them there.
Let’s say these little girls are taught by their fathers what protection and love is. Let’s say, they are taught what self-value is because their father valued and cared for their heart. They will look for a man that cherishes their heart, but will they know how to stand alone? Will they know what to do when there is pain? When there is a lack of protection?
We have those little girls that were taught what lack of love is, what lack of protection is. These little girls grow up searching for the love that they never had, not really understanding love at all. They look for the love that they have been craving their whole life, not really knowing what they are seeking because they have never known it. They are deceived, if they were taught how to stand alone they will move on only to find a repetition of pain. They have a lack of self-value because they were never taught that they were valuable. They will seek their whole life for that feeling of love that they can not see.
I was the little girl that could not do right, I was a failure at every pursuit. I was taught all the things that I did wrong, I was not taught that I can do right. So while I knew I needed freedom, the freedom to do right. The freedom to be loved. The freedom to be happy. I had to find a man to provide that life for me. I was not taught how to stand alone.
Little boys are taught that boys don’t cry. They are taught to hide their emotions. Some are taught what love is, and how a man should treat a woman. They see their fathers treat their mothers with love, respect, and protection. Others are taught to man up to soon, they lack the guidance they need to be a man. Regardless, little boys are taught to stand strong, and that weakness is unacceptable. Little boys are taught to hold their pain inside, then out of nowhere they drop a screwdriver and all the emotions they had previously held comes pouring out. Or if they had a lack of guidance, they let their emotions affect their relationships, while not speaking of their pain they let that pain out on the ones they love unexpectedly.
Let’s say, little boys are taught by their fathers what love is, and how a man should respect and protect a woman. These are the fathers that teach their daughters and sons God’s intent for the man to lead the generations. Their efforts live on. They learn satisfaction, and they teach their children how to gain that same satisfaction.
We have those little boys that grow up to soon and lack the guidance teaching them how to be a man. They act and react based on their emotions not really intending to hurt those they love, they find themselves in a repetition of pain. Men find their satisfaction with the appreciation that they receive. If it is that they are hindering that appreciation they find hate for themselves which eventually is too painful to look at so they start blaming the world. They repeatedly chase away love because they were never taught how to treat love. If it is that they have daughters, these are the men that show their daughters how not to be treated because they simply don’t know a man’s place in this world. These men are dissatisfied, they haven’t learned what God intended as the man. If we are not living as God designed, we are simply gaining discomfort and hurt.
The fact of the matter is, we inflict pain upon ourselves if it be that we are attached to a generational curse. That pain was passed down from generation to generation. This knowledge allows us to find understanding and break the chain. We can never change what we have been taught, or the way someone else walks, although we are still affected. But if it be that we find understanding as to why people walk and react that hinder us, we can forgive and start making changes. To understand the gravity of your imperfections as a parent is to understand human reaction. They say there is no instruction manual for being a parent, although the bible does give us instructions on how to be a better human which our children inevitably learn from.
We will never be perfect, we will make mistakes, we will fall. Although, parenting calls for our perfection because our imperfection is more intense when it affects our children. We as parents never want our children to gain pain due to our lack of perfection, but this is inevitable. What if we teach our children that imperfection is ok?
We often times separate adult from child, there are things that kids should know and things that they should not. They should not know where our pain comes from. But, should they instead blame themselves for our pain? But if instead we communicate what’s hindering us, they learn from our mistakes and learn how to be human. We want to shelter our children from pain, but did that work for you? No matter how much our parents tried to protect us, they couldn’t, we still found pain.
We need to stop trying to protect our children and start being honest. We need to be honest with our children about the things that we have learned, the things that caused us pain, the bad things that happened to us or can happen to them. We must teach them the struggles of being an adult, the struggles of being a parent, and how we can only do our best which sometimes isn’t enough. They have the ability to learn from our mistakes and they will learn from their own pain in their travels, day by day they will accumulate wisdom. They will understand that pain isn’t who they are, but what they go through. They will strive to be the best human possible because they don’t hold mistakes, they find understanding in all things, and they know that every obstacle eventually works its way out. When they leave your loving arms, they are ready to conquer the world. You can be at ease because you know that they are prepared to stand on their own, and they know what danger is.
It’s time for us to raise children that will break that generational curse, children that will make a change. Gentleman, you are the chain breakers. You are teaching your children how to be loved, how to be a wife or a husband, how to raise their children to do the same.