The tough side

Rick wrote a comment that got me thinking: if I could be 1/10th of the person my Dad is...........I know how you feel. My mother and my father have both done things in their lives that I am not proud of. But somehow along the way they raised all of us. Somehow, we were fed, even when things and times were hard, my mother made sure that there was food on the table. Of course we won't get into my brother and the way he was treated, or favoritisim. That is another situation that I would rather not get into here. I think that I turned out to be a decint person, inspite of all of the turmoil, the idiocy etc. So may I learn from the wrongs, and live by the rights.
The rights, a sense of value, as a person, the ability to follow the rules and know why I should, not why I can't or why I won't. (like for instance, you should obey the law, even if you don't agree that driving 55 or 65, depending where you live, doesn't apply to you.) Knowing that I live in the Unite States, and that it is my right as a citizen to vote, and I voted a few weeks after my 18th birthday for the first time, because I signed up to do it.
I larned that it is important to spend TIME with your kids, not money on them. Birthdays and Christmas are for that. Necessities are your right, activities are a privledge, and should be treated as that. Baseball is a privledge, basketball is a privledge, etc. Do what is asked of you and you will be able to keep these privledges. Simple, easy to follow. Have the ability to say "no" once in while. Even when you don't "have" to, it builds character to earn what you "want." Teach the difference between "need" and "want," they are different.
I am trying to raise all three of my children morally, trying to teach them the difference between good and bad, right and wrong. I don't want them to feel as if the world is supposed to hand them everything. I want them to know that if you want something,you need to work for it.
Of course there are ttimes when I do give for the sake of wanting, that is called balancing. Never though, will I pay fo r grades. I have seen that go too far, put a price on that report card, and they don't earn the grades that they should, they earn them for the money at the end of the semester!
Sad that people don't look at what they were taught: they hold on to that immature thought, at about age 15 it was developed, Im never going to act like them,or I will never do to my kids what they did to me. Unless you were abused, What was wrong with the way we were treated?????????? Hindsight is 20/20, that is the truth, I hope that my children realize that we are doing the best that we can, that we haven't done this before, and that we are doing what we think is right. I know hta tmy kids won't call me by my first name and get away with it, and that they won't be out throwing turkeys through car windows in the middle of the night, at 15 years old. What am I doing wrong? Nothing as far as I am concerned.

Ask any one of my kids: "what happens if you get arrested?" you know what the answer is? "Don't call you, you aren't bailing us out, MOm." Of course I would bail them out, but they would pay me back. The moral of the story is, don't do something so wrong that you have to make that call. don't be an idiot and get your ass locked up, it isn't going to be my responsibility to save you from your self!
that is all for now.............................................................................let me know how you feel.