The older I get and the older you guys get, the more anxiety I have. I never used to have anxiety. Now, I feel like time is getting short, and I’ve got my entire lifetime’s worth of knowledge to impart on you guys. I haven’t even figured it all out yet myself, and by the time I do – I’ll be ancient. What I mean by ‘I feel like time is getting short’, is that time is going by so damn fast. I don’t even know how to explain it, this first paragraph was terrible but I’m going to leave it.
I’m deathly afraid of something happening to you guys. I’m not worried about something happening to me, but I’m deathly afraid of not being there for you guys when you need me. I don’t want to miss anything important or not in y’all’s life. I want to be there for everything. And I don’t want you guys to have to experience anything bad that I did. That’s where the anxiety comes in. I never used to be afraid of dying, and I was never constantly worried/deathly afraid of keeping tiny little people alive and well and not kidnapped.
“They” (whoever they is) say “Kids change everything”. This is what they mean. These are the things that nobody explains to you. Everybody says, “Kids are expensive and kids take up all your time and kids are stressful because they get everything dirty and break all your things” and I definitely get all that. I understand that a lot better now that I’ve got a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old. But what everybody failed to mention was that you’ll starting having anxiety – you’ll starting worrying for no reason that you might possibly not be there for your kid’s entire lives until they die. You might just have a panic attack in the middle of the day one day because you briefly imagined that one of your kids could get kidnapped or die some strange way, and what would that do to you and the rest of the family from here on out. I just don’t know how I could go on. I guess the same way I could go on after my incredibly terrible 2013 and 2014 – just knowing I had no choice because I owed it to my wife and kids to be there for them. They more than deserve to have a husband/father that’s the best at everything, and I’m the only one that can do it for them in this life – so that’s what I’m going to be or I’ll die trying.
Anyway, here are some ‘Rules for Raising Kids’ that I found online that I thought were pretty great.
1.Never lie to them. They are smart as hell and need truth more than protection. This kind of ties in with the old saying, “Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” The reason that you guys need the truth is to better prepare you for an unforgiving world. I’m going to try and not shelter you guys – but reality is unbelievably harsh sometimes.
2. Tell them you love them every day – Check. Lol
3. Hug and kiss them frequently. If they never receive physical affection they won’t know how to give it or handle it. Check lol.
4. Let them get hurt. Pain is an invaluable teacher. They will only touch a hot stove once. I’m a goddamn pro at this. Actually, it’s not that I let Charlotte get hurt on purpose so much – it’s that she is constantly getting hurt, way more so than Mason at 3-years-old. She’s so reckless. She’ll fall head first into something without even trying to save her self at all. She wipes out so hard. She rounded the corner in the hall once, hit the inside corner of the wall, tripped and fell cheek first into the door jam of the bathroom – had a bruise on her cheek for at least a week.
5. Let them solve their own fights. When they run to you to solve the issue say “solve the problem” and stand back. I do this to an extent – because the fighting can get pretty annoying. I try to let you guys fight it out for the most part. It’s funny because Mason gets so annoyed and frustrated and can’t take it, just for Charlotte to continue on forever, it’s like she’s having the time of her life pestering Mason.
6. Teach them about money, cash flow, business and economics. School isn’t, this knowledge is 100% up to you. Check LOL
7. Get them a dog. Who wrote this??? Jackie??
8. Teach them to survive. Teach them to hunt, fish, build a shelter, start a fire, grow food, and find clean water. I’m trying… honestly, I’m terrible at this. We need to go camping more. Charlotte requests to camping about once a week. I think our first tent camping adventure had a huge impart on her LOL
9. Teach them manners. Please and thank you, yes sir, yes ma’am should never be encouraged but expected. If you have no manners, neither will they. Check.
10. Give them all of you. Let them see you cry. Let them see you rage. Never hide your feelings or emotions from them. Working on it…
11. Build a relationship with them. They deserve more than your clients, golf buddies or friends. Ask them questions. Find out what they love, ask them what they fear. Actively be investing in a relationship with them. This is probably the most important rule on this list. Genuinely should be rule number one. If every other rule on this list fails to materialize, if you’ve got a meaningful relationship with your kids, if you spend MOST of your time on them and not other BS like work, you kids will easily forgive you for the other short comings. It’s so blatantly obvious to me that the most important thing to Mason and Charlotte is that they just want to be near to me. They want to talk to me and do fun things, too. But mainly they just want to be with me, it makes them feel safe. Make that happen as much as possible.
12. Be in their world. If they like video games, play video games with them. If they like sports, play sports with them. Do things THEY want to do even if it’s not your cup of tea. Check LOL.
13. Date them at least monthly. Men take the boys out for guys night and your daughters out for daddy daughter dates. Be 100% present with them. We’ve been doing a lot of family activities, but maybe I’ll start making time for them individually. Mason and I have BJJ we share. Charlotte will have something like that too here pretty soon.
14. Discipline with intention. Discipline them but teach them the lesson after. Always hug and kiss them and tell them you love them after you discipline. I’ve always done this extremely well, I think, with Mason… I need to do a better job with Charlotte. Mainly, because when Charlie is bad (a wreck) there is no talking to her after. She’s a crying zombie (for right now).
15. Let them be a kid. They are nerdy, stinky, emotional creatures. Don’t try and make them a smaller version of you, let them be a kid. I try!
I love you guys!
S.M.U.R.F. 