And the madness continues

Well I finally finished the book. hmmmm, well I didn't leave it with an excited view of the world and how NOW everything will fall into place. I came away with sort of a sadness for the author who herself feels this pressure now and doesn't see a way out. One chapter was called "Wonderful husbands", it started out with women all saying how wonderful their husbands were, then got down to the nitty gritty about how lacking they really are on the home front. Ok, well Herman is a wonderful husband also. But he is also human and I don't expect him to be able to run this household if I were gone any more than I would expect myself to be able to go to the prison and do his job. Not without the training first. Why do we moms choose to do it ourselves? Because it's easier. How many times have I wanted to just fold the towels myself because when Becket does it they look like a rolling mess on the shelves. Just last night after coming home from a therapy session (another story) the table was set. My first statement was, "Did Tansy set the table?, cuz she really did a crappy job" Turned out Herman set the table. Oops. I explained that Tansy has been learning how to set the table the right way. And I really appreciated his helping, but it might be a good thing if he learned to set it correctly also so we can both teach the children how to do it. Whew, I think it was a good save. That is our nature, to do it all ourselves because it won't get done the way WE want it to. This is one area that lessening the pressure on our family may come in.
Ok, another subject I am milling around. How can I possibly raise my children the way WE want to, and still raise them to be able to fit into any part of society when they are grown? If I am not pushing my children to take on 4 classes of dance, karate, or baseball, and if I'm not forcing Becket to read for a full hour a day and if I'm not playing classical music for Andrew will I doom them for a life of under achieving? Herman and I were talking about this and his reply (which I found very profound) was that we need to raise our children to be parents. Whether they choose to be a CEO of a company or an Abbot or Abbess, whether they are teachers, or lawyers, or artists they will all need the skills of being a parent. A parent has to delegate, challenge, encourage, submit, give in, rally, teach, provide, allow and prepare just as much as any of these other careers would call for. A mom has to know her math to get around in the kitchen as would a chef or dietician. A dad needs to be able to fairly impose consequences when a situation calls for it, much as a supervisor would need to. So now I'm thinking that I can still raise my children in a loving, fun, carefree yet stimulating atmosphere by using a secret weapon that God has given me. It's called: Common Sense.
One last warning though, it's a rough road going from "going with the flow" of society to swimming up stream, without placing a judgement on those that have yet to "turn around"