On the way home from the lake on the 4th of July the husband and I had one of our "serious talks", you know the ones that you think about long after the conversation is over, but that I love having with my husband. The main topic, which I'm sure you can guess, was Little Bit.
We began talking about raising her in this crazy, upside down world. When we found out we were pregnant, after the first thoughts of excitement, the next thoughts I had were fear. Fear of how we were going to raise this sweet, innocent little girl in such a tough world. There are so many more "factors" that we are going to have to deal with than our parents or grandparents had to deal with besides the typical raising a child issues like curfews, friends, school etc…We will have issues like elementary age kids knowing more about "life" than I knew when I graduated high school, technology..oh technology , ample amounts of drugs..even illegal drugs that are now legal, different family lifestyles, body images, and I'm sure many more things that haven't even crossed my mind.
My husband and I had very different childhoods, not that one was right and one was wrong, just very different. He sometimes likes to tell me I lived in a bubble..but I promptly remind him I really loved that bubble and sometimes wish I could go back to it! When we were discussing Little Bit the husband made a statement that stuck with me, he said that "my brother and I were outliers when it came to kids growing up!" Now at first I was kinda like okay what the heck does that mean, but then I began to think about what he meant by that comment. You see growing up my brother and I, not to brag or anything, were pretty good kids. We never really got into trouble (minus the occasional, okay more than occasional, grounding over grades in high school..more so me than him.. ) growing up. We weren't involved in alcohol, drugs, partying, poor relationships, sneaking out (the husband was in utter disbelief when I told him I never snuck out and more so that the thought never crossed my mind) or anything else that "typical" kids/teenagers do. Now don't get me wrong we messed up, made mistakes, and made poor decisions at times but our mistakes were different than other kids! Though I never considered us "outliers" because all of our friends were the same way, looking back I am glad I was an "outlier".
So our conversation lead us to how we're going to go about raising little bit in this world, this crazy world, and how perhaps we could raise a child that avoided the "typical" issues. We began discussing what was it that my parents did that helped us to avoided certain situations. There was no one thing that I could put my finger on, besides that fact that I have the most amazing parents! I did keep coming back to the fact that all of my friends were the same way as me and my brother. I think that played a huge part in why we grew up the way we did. All of my good friends growing up, like my best friends, I met either at church or they were my parent's friends' kids. This is what I think helped more than anything, I was never pressured to make poor choices or end up in bad situations because their parents were raising them the same way.
We all were being raised with the same morals and standards. Those morals and standards were all based around one thing, one important thing, God. That is what I want for Weslee and what helped me so much as a child..having parents that raised me in a Christian home and having friends that helped reiterate that in everyday life, instead of friends that would make me have to make choices between making a good decision or a poor decision. Those friends that I had then are still some of my very closest friends even to this day, funny how that works! Now don't get me wrong I know that just because you have "good" friends doesn't mean that she is never going to make a poor decision or do something that Will and I prefer that she hadn't done!
I know that we can not pick every single friend that Weslee makes in her life, but we can surround her with friends and people in her life from the very beginning that will help guide and love her. We can also raise her to be a godly woman, that is humble and classy. We can raise her to have a servant's heart and pray that she learns to love the lord deeply. We can teach her to be strong, and confident in her abilities as well as in her appearance. We can give her two loving parents that live by example (the best that we can) and show her how to love God and love people. Parents that show her how to make good choices, how to be strong in her faith and what she knows is right. We can giver her two parents that understand that she is going to fall down and she is going to mess up but that we will be right there with her always. Forever.
Long story short, No..we didn't figure out the million dollar question on how to raise the perfect child who doesn't make mistakes or poor decisions, but we do know what we are going to make important in our family and what we want to instill in Weslee. I am 100% certain we will make mistakes, Weslee will make mistakes but I think that as long as our family is centered around God and Weslee's friends have the same beliefs then we are going to be on the right track!
Sweet girl, Daddy and I are going to do the very best we can to raise you to be your absolute best in this crazy world. We love you!
