When I was pregnant the first time we got talking, as I’m sure most couples do, about how we hoped to raise our kids, y’know, what’s our Parenting Philosophy? I’m not sure if we settled on a set of rules and guidelines before the Boy was born, though we talked about things we did and didn’t like about how our own parents raised us. But as soon as the Boy was born we were both deeply struck by something: We felt SO responsible. Like, this is a living, breathing human, and we have to help him thrive physically and emotionally, and we realised that this small creature we held in our arms was a sponge. We said to each other: Every single thing we do is teaching him something. With our every word, every action, every reaction, with the way relate to him and to each other, we are teaching him something. And therefore… with both kids, we need to always be thinking: What do we want them to learn? With every thing we say, and do. Every action, every reaction… What do we want them to learn?
It felt heavy at first, but we got used to it. We got into being parents on purpose, so we owed it to our kids to take the job seriously. You’ve got to “Teach your children well…”