Parenting Goals

One of my goals in raising my children is to disprove the underlying assumption that children are a burden.

The commercial below is supposedly voted the best commercial in Europe (which is why they are probably being out bred by the Muslims 6 or 7 to 1).




My Comments:

Yeah, its kinda funny. But also says a lot about our culture.

The commercial assumes that the child is the problem. I would argue the parent is the problem. This 6 year old or so boy didn't just become a brat one day, he was trained to be one by his parents. So to accomplish the stated goal above (the goal being that my children would be a blessing to those they interact with) my wife and I are being proactive from the outset (birth) to teach our children respect for others, acceptable actions (e.g. don't jump on our old ratty couch, because you shouldn't be jumping on our neighbors nice couch), and obedience to authorities (among other things, of course).

We also go out of our way to leave a wake of order, not chaos. We've all been in the restaurant with crazy kids that yell and scream and throw food. Then the parents leave a mess. After one such incident at a local restaurant, my wife and I were saddened to over hear the waitresses talk about how they never wanted to have kids (because of the example they just saw). So we now go out of our way to tip big, pick up our mess, and teach our kids to say please and thank you. And by the grace of God perhaps someone will see the work of Jesus in our lives through our children and will themselves give praise to God in heaven who gives us the wisdom to see the value and joy in children.