I’m A Bad Parent
Have you ever been placed in a situation with your children where you felt like you were the worse parent in the world? Maybe you felt like you could have done a better job of protecting them against something. Or, you could have been more verbal about a situation than you were. Or even maybe you felt that you could have provided a better situation for them that you did. I’m sure every parent has been down, “I’m a bad parent road,” before.
As parents we are given the responsibility to protect our children, to provide for them, to love them, and to be their tour guide throughout life’s journey until they are capable to guide themselves. Even the Bible and other religious books/manuals outline the role of parents. So being a parent must be an important and sacred job. But what do we do when we feel like we’ve failed our children? How do we deal with that parental blame?
Here’s what happened to me.
So, if you all read my blog post Living With A Curse (I hope that you did but if you didn’t, click here to check it out now) you know that my husband and I signed our son up for swimming lessons this summer and those lessons didn’t go as either of us imagined. However, there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow🌈.
At his first day of swimming lessons there was an incident that occurred that caused this mama bear to become extremely angry! As I was sitting behind the rot iron gates watching this incident unfold I initially told myself, “Allison, calm down it’ll get better,” and then the words to myself began to sound like, “I know she just didn’t,” “girl, oh yes she did,” “go get your kid and tell her a piece of your mind,” “no, don’t do that there are kids around.” I thought I was only having this conversation with myself in my head but I must have been visibly and verbally going through this conversation because when I returned back to reality I was sitting on the edge of my seat and a parent of another child that was also in class was agreeing with what I was saying.
I didn’t let my anger and frustration get the best of me. I stayed as calm as I could and allowed my son to finish class and decided that I would wait until after class to address my concerns. After all, the behavior from the instructor was not life threatening towards my son and besides what was going on, he was enjoying himself.
After class was over and the teacher FINALLY made their way to give me their observation of my sons performance in class that day, I passionately expressed my concerns and you know what happened, nothing. No apology, no I’ll do better next time, no I hear and acknowledge what you are saying, nothing. All this person could do was explain why their behavior was acceptable. How arrogant! Several years ago I was listening to someone get a prophetic word and what was spoken over them were these words, Bless, release and do not return! Even now hearing those words makes me want to RUN. That prophetic word was not directly spoken over me BUT I quickly grabbed them as my own, lol 🤣 and have found them to be of great help and guidance for me.
(Side Note: just because a particular prophetic word was not spoken directly to/over you, if it resonates in your spirit, grab those words and holdfast!)
So that’s what I did with this particular person. I BLESSED the person with kind words instead of cutting them down with my tongue after I realized that they were not mentally, physically or cognitively capable of handling situations or conversations like the one we were having, I RELEASED them in forgiveness and from being connected to my son, and I made a decision to NOT RETURN my son to participate in anything this person was in charge of.
If you really know me, you know that I LOVE writing letters 😂 when I feel that I or something I cherish has been wronged (salute to my 2002 FRONT PAGE article in a parish wide newspaper entitled, “Bands Are Hard To Hear In St. Landry Parish” 😂). I wrote a letter (well actually a long DM) to the owner of this business and we were able to rectify the situation with one phone call.
I’m a believer that lessons can be learned from every experience, positive and negative. If we are to continue to grow and strive to be the best parents (NOT perfect parents) that we can be, we must keep our eyes and ears open along the journey to the lessons that we are being taught.
Amongst others, these were the most important lessons I learned from this situation.
EVERYBODY IS NOT FOR YOUR CHILDREN. I’d like to think that I did my due diligence of checking out this company and received nothing but good reviews from people that I’ve spoken with. However, our experience was not like theirs. As parents we have to know who is for our children and who is not. Just because this person was a great teacher for their child/ren was not the same for us. If you notice that someone is not for your child, be willing to RELEASE them from that person or situation. I feel that someone needs to hear this prophetically, everybody, every place, every situation isn’t able to handle your anointing, let it and them go so you can grow.
SPEAK UP FOR YOUR CHILDREN. In my case, I was there to witness what happened and didn’t have to wait for my son to say something (or even not say something and he bottle up that situation inside). If your children come to you and say that someone said something, or did something that made them uncomfortable, don’t disregard their feelings. Do your due diligence and check it out. Also, speaking up doesn’t always mean “making a scene.” Some things can be handled with a leveled head and a calm demeanor. I’m sure you’ve all heard the saying, “you can kill more flies with honey than vinegar.”
DON’T BLAME YOURSELF. This one was the hardest for me to accept. You are not the worlds most perfect parent and guess what, you will never be. Realize that parenting is a journey, there will be hills and valleys, there will be rain and sunshine. Put your best foot forward and do in the moment what you feel is best. If you mess up, vow to do better next time. Also, seek out wise counsel. Build a community of parents that you can speak freely with, that will tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear. In speaking with my wise counsel I was given insight to something I probably wouldn’t have seen and honestly it made the difference in me no longer blaming myself. Blaming yourself in hindsight for not doing something you felt you should have done in the moment will only make things worse. Look ahead and not backwards.
What parenting woes have you been faced with? How did you handle it? How did you move forward?
Until next time, be blessed (Oh Yeah, Blessed! 😀) ✌🏾
AMG