I often find myself speaking with parents who are distraught about their teens or adult children. Recently I met a mother who was distressed about her adult son. As a God-believing person, she did her best to teach her child according to the precepts of the Bible. As he grew up, the child who had been a difficult one to raise, became very cynical and rebellious against everything he had learned from his parents, including and mostly God. “Don’t you know that it is stupid to believe in God?” He told her. And also, “I will never let you see my kids!”
“How funny!”, I thought. This child who blames his parents for having taught him according to their own set of values, values against which he now rebels, turns around and tells his mom that he will teach his own child according to his own set of values, against which his child will most likely also rebel. Some time before I was faced with another parent who had a daughter who felt she was very modern. She had also rejected the religion that her parents had taught her in favor of a very humanist culture. This young woman prided herself in having nothing to do with religion which she considered useless. Until she got married and had her own child. Then relatives on both sides of the family pushed their own religious agenda for the child. The poor mother didn’t want to displease anyone, including her child. She felt that whatever decision she made, including that of excluding religion from his life, that one day that child will rise and blame his problems on her decision. To such a person I say, ‘Welcome to parenthood! You can only make the best decisions you know how to make at the time; hope for the best, and brace for the worst!” Come to think of it, parenthood or life itself doesn’t come with a manual. We are basically meant to fend for our own and make the best decisions we know how according to the set of parameters that we have been given at the time. Sometimes we win, and sometimes we fail. And sometimes what looks like failure may actually be a win, and vice-versa. That’s why, as a child or as a parent, as an employee or as a leader, as a soldier or as a general, we must be very careful and slow as to how we judge other people’s decisions. In all things really, it is time that differentiates right from wrong, good from bad, victory from failure. And why is it so? Because as the young man and the young woman I mentioned about at the beginning of this article will surely find out, through the passing of time, life’s unforgiving lashes have a way of helping us grow and mature to where we can see things from a more even perspective, and realise that we are all in the same boat doing the best we can.
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