There are no better people to teach our children about life but us, and as parents, it is not our job to prepare them for the cruel world ahead. Instead, we must mold them into someone who would make the word less cruel!
“Children observe their parents more closely, appraise their parents more carefully, and know their parents better than parents do the child,” wrote Carl E Pickhardt, PhD. “Parents vastly underestimate how closely they are observed and how constantly they are evaluated by their child.”
The song “7 Years” by Lukas Graham is about a man and his mom. He narrated what her mother told him about life – how to live and prepare for it, and eventually, he had the mind of his own. How does he think about life? How did the words of her mother influence him?
“Once I was seven years old my momma told me
Go make yourself some friends, or you’ll be lonely
Once I was seven years old.”
Neil Farber MD, PhD, CLC, CPT, wrote, “Paul Simon was right about the mother and child reunion being a very close bond. The parent-child relationship is qualitatively different than all of our other relationships.” As mothers, we would want our kids to have friends who would make them feel less lonely when they are not at home. A mother fears to know her children is sad or hurt that’s why she needs to see that they have friends who would make them laugh.
“Once I was eleven years old my daddy told me
Go get yourself a wife, or you’ll be lonely
Once I was eleven years old.”
It depends on the parents when they would orient their kids on getting married – its essence and everything revolving it. Some moms bring this matter up when their kids are near puberty. Somehow, it is a part of separation anxiety because we know that during adolescence, we may not be the most important people in our children’s lives. We worry about their future. Who would take care of them? Would they be in good hands? Would they be happily married? We ask these questions because we already understand that these are essential to living a happy life.
“Once I was twenty years old, my story got told
I was writing about everything, I saw before me
Once I was twenty years old.”
Someday, our children will live life on their own, and as parents, the worry doesn’t end when they step out of our house. It would instead worsen because we know people may or may not be kind to them. In this line of the song, the child grew old enough to have his fair share of the thing called life.
“Soon I’ll be sixty years old. My daddy got sixty-one
Remember life, and then your life becomes a better one
I made a man so happy when I wrote a letter once
I hope my children come and visit, once or twice a month.”
It is our human nature to fear to be lonely when we grow old, and we could only hope that our kids will come and visit us someday with their kids coming to us running, and it will be one of the few times we would want chaos while our grandchildren scream, “Grandma!”
We may not have our children to lead forever, but our worry for them will be until our last breath. One way to have less fear about them is to make sure that we taught them well. It may be hurtful to think that there will come a time that they would not need us anymore, but it will be one thing parents would wish for someday.
Likewise, even if we are far apart or after our passing, our influence on them remains. Stanley J. Gross, EdD, wrote, “How we act in our committed relationships is largely the result of how we experienced relationships in our families of origin. We often talk, walk, eat, think, and may even vote like our parents. We may not realize, however, how influential they have been. For some, it is only when dealing with their own children that they first recognize these similarities.”