The Theory is what you would want or hope for your family to turn out in the end, 20 years from the beginning. What kind of schools you'd want to get your kids into, what will they become, where will they be staying and working, what kind of educations they will have, what kind of friends they will be hanging with. You will sometimes dream on to their kids what their kids will be like.
The Execution is what you need to do to ensure every Theory works out according to plan. The income you will need to be making to sustain the lifestyle you want for them, the people you need to hang out with to ensure a safe spot in the school you want them studying in, the society you need to get into so your kids will have their children as friends.
The equation is simple: The smaller the gap between Theory and Execution, the closer the Result is to Perfection. So long as everything remains on the rail, you will be giving your kids the best life any parent can provide, and they will be properly nourished to tackle their future. And you will be a proud and successful parent. If only it was that simple.
Today we talk about the Contingency: what happens when Shit hits the Fan. We are not talking about having a Tamagochi dinosaur or a pet dog. Kids are people and people are the hardest to compute, sum up and categorize. Believe me, shit will always hit the fan.
1. Not Your Photocopy
Your children, each and every one of them, are individuals by themselves. Make sure you get that into your heads. They have their own rights, they make their own choices (well eventually). Most common error with parents is that they try to turn their kids into them. Parents would make their kids like their food,hobbies and brands. They would also make their kids become what they couldn't when they were younger for whatever reasons. Hold on there, smarty-pants. Your kids are not created by you so you can mold however you please!
2. Not With Cages and Chains
There is a difference between children and animals, by law at least, and that is you do not chain and cage your children. Obedience is never taught to human beings by fear and power. Do that and you'll most certainly get rebellion. If it is difficult for you to comprehend this new and actual effective method, learn it. If, after learning, you still don't believe in it, get a dog instead. If you still insist on having children then god bless you because you'll be facing some really nasty 3-week constipation on fan.
3. Lead by Action
Why is it that so many times we see leaders and preachers finding it hard to influence and change their followers? Because they do it by speech while their followers learn from their actions. Tell your kids to buckle up in the back seat when you don't, tell your kids not to drive like an ass while doing 160 and weaving through traffic, tell your kids to be polite when you curse at everyone who gets in your way. Stupid people will know your kids will be more of what you are than what you say you are.
4. Filter your own Shit
There may come a time when you realize you have married the wrong person. You want a divorce and you want custody. Fight, by all means, but NEVER involve your kids. Seriously, your kids didn't marry that person, you did. Your kids don't hate your spouse, you do. So don't let your kids carry the burden of your mistakes. Your kids see the both of you as their parents; role models and their protectors and guides into the world. Don't bitch about your spouse to your kids just so they will hate him/her they way you do! Filter your problems. If possible don't let your kids know a single thing.
5. Know Your Side
Your son will call you one day, having snuck out your car, that he crashed it. You will be pissed mad and emotional and wanting to kill him so bad. When you arrive at the scene, the other driver, an older man, comes up to you and says it's all your son's fault. You know your son is capable of causing this mess. Will you take the older man's word and scream at your son, or will you first ask your son what happened? Parents need to know when to punish their children, and when to protect them.
6. Compare to Nothing
Don't you hate it when your parents and their siblings always compare you and your cousins? And their friends' kids too? Remember what it felt like being compared to when you were young, and make sure you don't do the same. Everyone is individually different. Being good in math doesn't make you any better than a person who prefers literature or hair styling. The world is big, and it requires people of different interests and passions to keep it turning.
7. Queer Ready
Get yourself educated in homosexuality, in case you will have to face this with your kids. Gays do not choose to be so. They are born that way, like Down Syndrome and Lactose-intolerant. It is, if you'd like, a birth defect. Where on Earth would you find people who would prefer to be stigmatized and in some countries jailed and hung, instead of being 'normal'? If you're the kind of parent who desperately needs grand children, increase your odds by having more kids. If you're a parent who thinks being gay is disgusting and completely intolerable, then maybe we can find you a time machine so you can be taken back to the 1600s, where you belong.
If you think being a parent is in-born because we're all meant to have babies and they're been doing it fine for the past one thousand years and it's not quantum mechanics, consider again stupid. There is no Ctrl-Z here. Don't have babies just because everyone's doing it and sex is fun, or that you suddenly feel it would be nice to have more people running around at home.
Well but then again everyone's entitled to their own methods. Knock yourselves out, people. And if they don't turn out the way you'd hope, you can always leave them locked in the car under hot sun so they'd die of heatstroke and you can get away with some insurance money, and try for a new one that night.
