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We wonder why people have so many different ideas what freedom is.
People learn from their parents and their surroundings, during those crucial years before adulthood.
Some parents are great at making sure their kids get a good education, but forget to teach them to be self sufficient. They provide everything for them.
Some parents don't have the time and the kids raise themselves.
For those of you that have children, what are their chores, so to speak and what can they do for themselves without being told, that gets them ready for adulthood?
Does it have to do with being a one parent family, a divorced separated family or a family unit. What about the family that does everything together. Know any of them?
I have to say, @ 15, my daughter could make it on her own and do very well. She makes me proud everyday. We have taught her well.
My 4 kids have had successful careers, and left skid marks moving out of the house. But the youngest one, although he is distinguishing himself in the military, was the one that was raised almost like an only child. He came along when we had a lot more money, and were able to take nice vacations, provide him with a car, and basically smooth out all the bumps in the road for him. He's a big, handsome kid whom everyone likes, so it's hard not to do things for him, and I was dreading the empty nest.
The result is a generous, thoughtful man, but he is newly divorced, mainly because he is so self centered. Whatever he wants, he makes happen. He expected his wife to do everything for him just like I did. She had her own baggage, but she is a good person who we are sad to lose. Right now, he is deployed and his Dad and I are handling his affairs for him. We really don't mind, but what would he have done without us to keep doing things for him, since he waited until the last minute to make arrangements to handle his affaires?
We did a good job by raising honest children who left the nest on time, but we should have been tougher on the last one.
Yes, I got my kids ready for life. I admit they had an easy time in some ways in that their parents are happily married and were able to provide them with a debt free college education. But, if you ask them, they both have an impressive number of "the time Mom and/or Dad was so mean to me" stories. Like the time one of them didn't get an allowance, despite completing their daily old chores, for 6 months because they left their winter coat on a bench and it was gone when they went back to claim it. Mean old Mom made them pay for the new one. Or the summer one of them spent washing Mean old Dad's car every week so they'd learn not to leave trash in it when they were allow to borrow it.
Responsibility and other life skills are not something you sit your kids down and teach them one day. It's the culmination of a thousand lessons you teach them by word and deed during the 18 years they are under your roof. Personal responsibility, the value of education, hard work and compassion for others are the lessons we taught and I have kids who exemplify those lessons to show for it.
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