Family Planning?

I came across a DailyOM from DailyOM.com on Family Planning. Now, I know what you are thinking. Steve and I are old and we can’t be planning on more kids. You are right, we are not planning on adding to our family (until grandkids in the future, at least five years please). This was about planning the qualities you want to foster in your family's growth.

Since I am not in a position to mold my children much, if at all anymore, I was thinking about what I did do. I know for a fact that I wanted my kids to love learning. I stated it many times as they were growing, I modeled it and we lived it. Well, Sydnee will be going for her Masters in the Art of Teaching so she can be a high school math teacher. Robin is thinking about teaching science. I think I accomplished that goal.

That was the easy one, what else was there. “No name calling”. I always believed that you believe what your hear, even if you don't want to or know better, whether it is positive or negative but the negative carries more weight. I have worked hard to overcome some of the things my siblings said to me, so I was adamant that my kids not do that to each other. I’m not sure if this one worked, you would have to ask my kids, but I believe that they are very sensitive in many ways(and would have been anyway) and they are affected by what others say to and about them, like us all. They are also aware of the effect their words have on others. But other than the occasional “poopyhead”, I would say they spoke well to each other. Did I contribute to their sensitivity, I don’t know. Do they have or did they have problems because of it. Yeah, maybe. But they may have had those issues anyway. We will never know.


Steve believes that travel is important. He talked a lot about his backpacking trip to Europe as a 21 year old. We traveled with the kids, taking them to Mexico, California, on a couple of cruises (including this cruise to Alaska with both of our parents)and camping a lot. They love to travel and I see that being an important factor in their lives. I don’t know if Sydnee would have chosen to go to the University of Wales for a semester if this hadn’t been an important belief in our lives. Robin also plans to study abroad.

These are what I remember "planning" for our family. I wonder what I would have changed if I had seen this DailyOM before I had kids. Oh, well, I’ll never know.

Be Free.