Raising Children To Be Themselves

When we study genealogy, nothing is brought home more than,” the more we change the more we remain the same.” The statistics in each individual family remains fairly even when it comes to the failure versus success ratio from one generation to the next. There are very few if any families that will remain free of at least one family member having a criminal background over a three generation period, for instance. We can see a pretty well-rounded constant of the first generation establishing land holdings and or wealth, the second generation holding it together, and the third generation losing it.

All generations seem to have the proverbial favorite child that fails and the not so favorite child that succeeds. Our view of right and wrong also remains fairly consistent over the generations, so morality remains variable to constant then, as it does now. Views of what are and what are not acceptable behavior do change with almost identical results.

The moral protests over government as versus its people also remains fairly constant. Those that would prevail with the ideals or attitude that we as a Nation are more threatened now than what we have been in the past, when it comes to laxe rules of morality, would find if they looked closer, per capita we are pretty much even with the past when we discuss issues of morality. We have, though, as a people made huge progress in areas of equal rights,reducing race discrimination, and brought attention to the accepted ways of thinking that have become outdated in both areas of human rights and human behavior. We have gained in compassion for both the understanding and equality of others. We have a great deal to be proud of in the advancements made in these areas even though we still have a distance yet to go and that compassion is being threatened.

America has never totally known what to do with her freedom or the best way of governing it. Certainly corruption in government is not something new to this day and age. Families that sometimes appeared to fail the worse would have a child or children that would out succeed those that appeared to have children that were raised in ideal backgrounds.

Some families knew and understood the value of raising a child to be themselves without depleting their creative abilities. In doing so they also understood, the child would grow up in the field they were ordained to conquer, and thereby the chances of success as well as happiness would be increased. That theory is not new to the thinking of child behaviorist today.

Most pointers of success, show that self-expression can be allowed and handled better in a child that is taught the natural order of right and wrong and is disciplined, over the child that is neglected or free to run or govern themselves. Sadly too many families think that a child that is disciplined will have all their natural creativity taught out of them. This simply is not the truth, children can be allowed self-expression and taught how to express themselves, in ways acceptable to both home and Society, through discipline.

There has always been and will continue be, an acceptable way of speaking that grants respect to both child and adult. Children must have rules that will not interfere with, but strengthen their nutrition, sleep, and safety. Just as adults that speak of others or to others in both nasty words and actions do not feel good about themselves, neither do our children.

Teaching them a vocabulary that is not offensive to the adult population is not stifling their abilities but rather teaching them acceptable behavior. Just as an adult does better with a clear conscious so does and will a child. Children need the security and guidelines necessary to make them feel safe, loved, and good about themselves. Just as we adults can perform better with the same, so do our children perform better with the discipline. We can better offer that through, guidelines, curfews, and constant reassurance both through our own action and words.

It is when public schools or we as a family demand that all children be on the same page at the same time we find less than stellar results. We now must play catch up in order to correct the mistakes made with the “No Child Left Behind” program. Just the same as when a child was forced into accepting and thinking the previous generation had all the answers and therefore should be seen and not heard, has failed to provide acceptable results in the past. We as both a family and as Americans must always search for and seek out that which will work best for us as both individuals as well as a Nation.

Going backwards to an era that has proved to be less successful than today, when it comes to equality of both race and gender, strikes me as foolhardy, at the very least, if not down right dangerous. Clearly, the interests of the special interests groups should not replace those of the majority of Americans, nor should they have power over those of, “We the People”.

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Life Should Not Be a Vendetta

I will be the first to admit that they’re plenty of ills in Society. Unfortunately the truth is that it has always been that way and always will be. One side of the block doesn’t know what the other side of the block, in a neighborhood, is doing most of the time. People will then tend to guess or judge without either fact or knowledge. Many times, they put their own emotions into play to judge or speculate what the next person must be thinking, feeling or doing and sadly, their speculation as well as their ill-gotten perceptions becomes the truth. If the person that is guessing at the truth is capable of hate then so must total strangers also be, in a manufactured speculation of projecting their own will or thought onto others. Corporations and politicians amongst many have learned to simply hire a group to lie for them, in much the same way. Lawyers generations back, learned to deny, deny, deny when it comes to truth, will gain them more victories than truth will.

One small example of that, but it certainly isn’t the only one guilty of doing so, recently it was reported that the second largest agricultural company in America has an organization or group of approximately 40, organized to tell people that there is no scientific proof that our planet is in trouble ecologically because it works best for their wallets to deny that their feed yards or industry are emitting poison into our ground water or that they are emitting gaseous toxins into the air that we breathe. To have to change over all their plants to meet the green house standards would cost far more than to just hire a company that provides the organizations that claim the scientific studies are all lies. If people hear them spread lies often enough they will believe the lies before they believe the truth.

There is no way that we can legislate the truth into our Democracy as we cannot legislate the truth into our own homes. Even in dysfunctional families that have fantasized childhood into something it never was, in an effort to block the pain of abuse or to block the reality of the life they created, members will believe the fantasy over the truth. I might add, nothing is more manipulative or mean spirited either than the person that will project their fantasy onto another member of the family that has kept reality intact and rejects their exaggerated fantasy as the truth. The facts are the truth never changes, no matter how we remember it, no matter how many times they tell us, “you aren’t the holder of the truth.” Truth never changes. It is what it is.

They will and often do form a personal vendetta against the person that remembers the truth as they lived it and refuse to pay respect to the abuser, that often times is being protected by the fantasies or lies. The family member telling the lies or the fantasy that keeps the abuser on a pedestal is often times more desperate to maintain the history of the lie or fantasy to the point they sound more believable, because they are buying gifts in the family to obligate them or putting hours into the effort. The person that accepts the truth for what it is, many times does not bother to argue the truth, as it simply is not worth it.

Most have an immaturity or a strong need to believe that at one time in life that theirs’ was perfect. It is really sad, the number of adults that did not find joy in the life that they created for themselves and now must add value to a life that only partially happened if it happened at all. As we age our memories fail us and that is typically the time the lies are at their most powerful.

By the time we add government, churches, dysfuntional families, corporations, media, and the lies that are paid for, it becomes next to impossible to determine who is telling the truth and who has some kind of vendetta that needs to be settled. In many cases the issue or the argument often times gets lost as the person that knows truth and reality from fiction and lies is not going to hang around to convince someone whose only goal it is to sell the lie, that they need to hang around.

Any of us that live to adulthood will ultimately be found out in the next generations future when the paperwork made on each and everyone of our lives as individuals as well as the Corporation, Churches, Governments, and Politicians surfaces. Anyone doing geneology or goes after the the paperwork in the courthouses or medical records that are made public are many times surprised. The stories they were told in their childhood about the perfectly happy sucessful people, that were raised to Sainthood, often times were people that did not pay their fiscal responsibilies, lied under oath, or were just simply thieves and manipulators.

Everyone will ultimately learn just how high of a price they paid for accepting or believing the lies as well as for telling them. Yesterday’s lies often times are very difficult, if not impossible, to live up to and only add to today’s stresses when families make the comparisons. There never was a, “Leave It To Beaver” or a “Father Knows Best” or a “Donna Reed Show” type of family. That type of family has only existed in history in the minds of the television writers that wrote them or in the minds of the delusional.

It was common for children and sometimes wives to truly be beaten to death. Doctors refused to believe it even when they saw it time and time again. It was a license to use the bible to project cruelty and meaness no differently than the bible is being used against gays today. It all had to do with “not spoiling the child by sparing the rod.” To deny that there are hate crimes being performed on the gay population with the support of the bible thumpers, is to deny truth. The sad thing are the people today that believe,that it was o.k. to beat children to either total submission or death,not to mention, until the welts showed or the blood ran because there were no abuse laws then. They are so much in denial that not only do they condone it they accept it as having been a normal right of passage because the laws were absent.

In reality, no one possessing a healthy mind, can imagine picking up a stick, whip or limb and beating a child until they bleed without knowing that the truth was or is that the person capable of doing so had to possess a nature that was/is capable of being both cruel and deliberatly evil. That a natural parent’s love or kindness has to be made a law before there is any wrong in the beatings is and always have been a human tragedy.

It was not until a case in Minnesota in 1972, went before a judge that child abuse was even against the law or recognized as existing much less a crime. Doctors knew parents were mistreating their children and children dieing of mysterious deaths but they still refused to believe that a parent, much less a mother, could kill her own child. It took a case, where a mother adopted out her little boy, and the adopted mother so totally abused the little boy that he died, before child abuse was acknowledged as a crime.

Even then the case would never have been looked into when the 5 year old boy died if the birth mother had not made a trip to visit him. She went back to see her little boy, I believe when he would have been 12, and only found his grave. She would not stop until the adopted mother was prosecuted and child abuse became a crime. Mankind has always had to govern itself rather than to wait for the churches or government to catch up to just common decency.

Education and enlightenment that leads to awareness do not weaken us as a society it simply makes us less easy to control and brain wash. Prejudence,hate, and misuse of common decency can only breed in ignorance or a total void of empathy. Where once we were weak we are now strong thanks to the truth that will not be denied.

The real point, then that I am making is that truth will never be denied, spoiled, trampled on or made to be subjected to the fantasies and lies being told. It may not be found out today or tomorrow but it will be found out.

It took the Catholic Church 3 decades to acknowledge the pedophiles. All men that sit in the oval office speak about history clearing them if they are judged harshly today. History gets rewritten sometimes a 100 years later or often times the next day, because no one is powerful enough to hide or destroy truth.

With technology being what it is today there may be more lies added to a file but often there is also more truth exposed so there will always be a judgement day with a file that is much larger on each and everyone of us, than we can imagine. We may be surprised someday to find the file on Uncle Joe here on earth but it will never compare to the size of the file in our next life when the Dear Lord makes the judgement call on the truth.

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Cultural Differences

When I was inspired to do the geneology on my family, like most, I went into it thinking that I would find some long lost connection to wealth or royalty. It was with great relief after spending hours upon hours of research that I found my family to be like most immigrant families. Why relief? Because I discovered that I came from good common stock, that was not afraid of work, and in doing so, I discovered why I have a history of being a survivor.

Sure, like every family, I found the person that did not bring honor to the name, but anyone who thinks that they do not have one, is mistaken. It seemed there was an old great, great, uncle who in his drunken stupor got in an argument with his room mate and guns were drawn and a score settled. Many of the original pioneers and settlers of America that the Blue Bloods like to claim connections to, were simply criminals, incorrigibles, “nere do wells”, loaded on ships to America to get them out of Europe. It was with relief then that I was grateful to settle for the idea that we were neither royalty nor thief.

Mainly what I found was I come from a family of immigrants that were not afraid of hard work and moving where ever they had to go to find the ability to provide for their families. I am of German stock and I did find a gr. gr. gr. uncle that had left Germany, at the time that the Prussians took control, to fight for a wealthy Northern family whose son did not want to fight in the Civil war. The going price to hire European ex-military to fight in place of family members at the time, was a princely sum of $200.00

It was not uncommon in those days to hire what would be known as a mercenary to take the place of a wealthy son in the wars. This occured in the Revolutionary war as well as the Spanish/ American wars. It did not take today’s society to invent crime and corruption. Since the beginning of man it has existed with both money and power as well as poverty.

Other than those two instances, I found people that moved across an ocean and then across a continent to take advantage of the free lands to homestead and begin the roots of our American citizenry. I find that generation after generations since have had to migrate when times are tough, to find employment.

The 1930′s are written about in such books as, ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ in a very desolute and depressive period of time. People that actually lived through it together, though, talk about pulling together their resources and neighbor helping neighbor to save farms and ranches from bankruptsy and giving up their livestock and machinery at a dime on the dollar, if they were lucky. It would make an entire generation cognizant of the importance of saving and not wasting anything. People with an imagination could, “make a purse out of a sow’s ear”. It may not have been silk but there wasn’t much need for a purse anyway, as there were no coins to put into it.

Long story short, many did leave the heartland of America and migrate West only to find people that were starving out there as well. The important thing of it all, is that I found that when things got tough, I came from mobile stock. My back ground shows that there has never been a time when 3 generations lived in the same house or were not willing to leave the area in which they were starving to death.

There are a great deal of cultural differences in those of us that have been Americans, for generations and generations. In my own family we eat, dress, and live according to those differences that dictate East, Midwest and West Coasts. However subtle those differences are, we are still drawn together, by the stock of the pioneers before us. To understand one’s roots then, in my opinion, is to understand oneself.

My family history is not so unique from anyone else’s it simply tells the history of families and generations before us that found difficult times and economies, and went where they had to and worked at what was available until the economy changed. My concerns are for the unemployed of today that are not followig through on getting work, because they are waiting for a job that might never come back or think the work that is available is beneath their stature of ability.

Sometimes it simply takes picking up and starting all over as my husband and children have had to do and our family before us for generations, have had to do. Although we had to take a huge loss on our first home and begin again, through hardwork, budgeting,sacrifice,imagination and delayed gratification,even when we had a job, we will retire financially, well off. As long as we are committed to doing what we need to do in times of a tough economy there is always hope! History has proven that time and time again.

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