'Wanna see a picture?'
My mother has a photo of my dad in her wallet. One of my brothers, I think, carries a few images of his family in his PDA -- some are of him, his wife and son all together, and there's at least one that's a shot of him with his wife.
I believe this is the exception rather than the rule, based on my experience of happily obliging to countless "wanna see a picture of my baby/babies/kids/eldest/youngest?" questions from moms. The invitations range from quietly beaming to giddily gleeful, after which the "oooohh"-ing and "aaaahh"-ing ensues. It's always a delight to see photos of kids; more so to sense the pride and joy in the parents as they talk about even the littlest detail about their toddler's fascination for dinosaurs or their 3rd grader gently shushing his little sister and leading her out of the room "because mama's doing her prayer." Moms sometimes even relate a child's difficulty with adjusting to a new school or a teenage daughter's apparent poor judgment at seeing a guy who was brash and flunking out of school. The disappointment in the moms' voices was apparent, but the love and concern were undeniable.
I wait for the "wanna see a picture of my husband/hubby/very own Richard Gere?" question, ready with my "sure!" It doesn't come, though. Sometimes it does but that is very rare. "Hey, who's that?" I eye a snapshot lodged somewhere else in a former officemate's wallet. "Oh, that's my husband," she nonchalantly replies as if it were some insignificant detail.
I'm aware of the unique bond between mother and child owing to the nine-month connection that pregnancy builds. It is a connection like no other. At the same time, it seems easy to take the marriage bond for granted and so the connection, instead of being strengthened and enhanced, runs the risk of waning (at best) or even breaking (at worst).
I was supposed to write an intro to precede some insightful (and fact-backed) words about marriage and family that I found in a book. I went on and on again! Okay, enough of the intro. Here are the goods:
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What are the priorities of a good parent?
First, your spouseA good marriage is the bedrock of good parenting. If the spouses love each other, are prepared to sacrifice for each other and communicate well, their children will absorb their virtues. But, as everyone knows, this demands a daily struggle.
Learn to admire the strengths of your spouse; don’t get fixated on faults. Put your spouse on a pedestal in your child’s eyes; back up the other’s decisions. Couples need to know how to make decisions they are both happy with. They need habits of talking out differing opinions on privileges, punishments, ground rules, etc.
- from Parenting for Character by Andrew Mullins (Finch Publishing, 2005)
posted by sunnyday at 6:28 PM
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