There is no greater insult that you can bestow upon your children than blaming them for the unhappy outcome in your life. To look at your children and say, “I sacrificed my dreams because of you” is the biggest cop-out on Earth. It is also shitty parenting.
Nothing that they have done has kept you from doing anything at all.
Kids are simply innocent byproducts of the choices that you have made. Which, again, is entirely up to you. You offering up the noble lie that you can’t do “x” because they exist is merely another example of your shirking responsibility. What makes it worse is you’re now placing it on the shoulders of those you are supposed to be responsible for.
You achieving dreams, just like you producing babies, all come down to the same thing. Choices you make. You chose to give up on your goals, and you decided to have sex. I am often at a loss when people claim to be shocked that someone in the sexual encounter ended up pregnant. After all, as far as mother nature is concerned, that was the intent.
Even so, many ignore the actual purpose of sex and instead focus on the immediate gratification that it brings. Now, don’t get me wrong, I ain’t a prude, and I ain’t condemning you doing you. I am just saying don’t be shocked when you’re playing Russian roulette and the hammer falls on a loaded chamber.
More importantly, don’t blame the outcome of your game of chance, your children, for the dreams you “lost.” You didn’t lose ’em. You simply stopped looking for them in any meaningful way. Your kids didn’t make you quit. So put on your big boy pants and admit that it was all you.
You see, people will have a dream, and they assume that means it has to come true in the timetable they produced in their mind. If a kid impacts that, well, then the dream is dead.
No, it’s not. You just quit before it came true.
Your dreams are totally up to you. It may mean getting up early and staying up late. It may mean spending no money on something you want so you can put it on that thing your dream needs. It may mean what you thought would take five years will take ten. But there is nothing about having a kid that says you have to give up on what you want to do.
They aren’t mutually exclusive.
You can be a great parent and accomplish whatever you want too.
Don’t say you quit for your kids.
Don’t die on that noble lie.
#Justtheramblingsofanolinfantryman
RAMBLINGS OF AN OL' INFANTRYMAN: 