Mistakes, Love, and Parenting

… or any other human relationship, for that matter.

I got back yesterday from displaying books at Methodist annual conference for Alabama/Northwest Florida. We had the joy of having our daughter Janet join us there to help out, and we got to chat a bit. We were talking about raising children–she has two–and I mentioned how I used to regard myself as completely ignorant of child raising when I was a bachelor, unlike some singles I know, who are pretty certain their children wouldn’t behave “that way!” I noted that when I married Jody, and acquired a ready-made family, I discovered that “completely ignorant” was not an adequate description of the depth of my ignorance!

One observation survived the passage from bachelor to married with children–I had always observed that the particular child-raising theories expressed by the parents seemed not to be reflected in the children. There were disciplinarians with behavioral disasters and seemingly permissive parents with well-behaved, polite children. The one thing I always noticed was that the children of involved parents seemed to do well, while the children of distant or absent parents tended to do, well, not-so-well.

Today I found this wonderful article on Inside Higher Ed. Rosemarie Emanuele, Mama PhD, talks very personally about the mistakes one makes, and the love that is still there–and works.

I loved it! I hope you will too.