u r funny...
But I am ready to have that conversation too. That is, I'm ready to have the conversation with ZenGum about a hypothetical conversation with our son about "...especially pimps...". Hehehe... good one.
A couple things first. Being a husband and father is the most important work I have in my life. I take that work very seriously. It is work, but it's work I love, and I'm happy to talk about (most of) it.
I've talked about this before. As a parent, my core responsibility to my child is to raise him to be a competent adult (there's a ton packed into that little phrase--granted). The basic method is to help him learn about the world. Those lessons change as he grows. And the way the lessons are learned changes too.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by BigV
As a parent, some lessons I *tell* to my son. Some lessons I *show* him. Some lessons I leave for him to discover on his own. Of the three, the third one is the most potent teaching method. It's not always appropriate. "Don't play in the street" is a tell lesson--the stakes are too high to permit an error. How to ride a skateboard is a show lesson--at least at the beginning--he's way better than me now. How to get along with his peers is mostly a (series of) self discovery lessons.
The three methods are not mutually exclusive, of course. And parental temperament plays a big factor in this kind of social dynamic. I prefer the self discovery angle, but not exclusively. Others here have posted their preference for a much more authoritarian stance, mercy and Radar are a couple of examples that come to mind.
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I *know* you're making with the funny here, and you have considerable talent in that regard, but someday I might be faced with a challenge to my parenting skills of such enormity. I'm not saying I'm ready today for such a challenge, but I'm planting seeds every day so that I don't have to face that one, or that he knows how to avoid that one.
For sure, whatever path he takes, *some* circumstance at any given time will be the most critical, and it might be pretty hairy indeed. When that happens, I hope little successes (and the memories of the failures and lessons learned from them) like this will carry the day. Ultimately, it will be his life, successes and failures alike. Who knows, maybe next time he'll remember my words of warning before he breaks out the crack pipe. One can only hope.