Parenting

Title: How We Raised You

With Love but not Adoration,

With Attention to your Needs

but never Slavery to them.

With Help Offered when it was Needed

and Withheld, when to offer it would have Smothered

Independence and Responsibility for your own Actions.

by protecting you from Danger

but not from Pain and its Lessons.

by Refusing to take Responsibility for your Actions.

even though you’d occasionally “Stub your Toe.”

by deliberately putting you into Stressful Situations

so you could Learn to Handle Them.

by telling you “How” and “Why” …

but never doing it “for you.”

by training you that Results are the Reward for Action.

by teaching you to Distrust your Emotions

but to Trust your Intellect.

by teaching you How the World Works

so it wouldn’t be a Surprise.

by teaching you to Control your Mental Attitude to Do Your Bidding —

so Others Couldn’t.

by teaching you To Be Fair

even though the World is Full of Unfairness.

by teaching you that the Pain of Honesty is Always Smaller.

by Programming your Achievement of the Good Life by Letting You Taste Some of it.

by teaching you to Be An Expert

but teaching you “Never to Believe Experts” …

but instead to Listen and then Make Your Own Decisions.

by teaching you to Question, but Never to Accuse.

by teaching you to Love Family and To Do Your Duty Without Letting It Suffocate You.

by teaching you to Have More Fun than I did.

by teaching you to Give Everything Your Very Best Effort and to NEVER QUIT —

but to Know When it’s Time to Take a Second Look.

by teaching you to Appreciate Things

by Letting You Earn Them.

by teaching you to Argue Your Point Persuasively

and to Communicate in the Language the “Other Guy” Could Hear,

by teaching you that a Good Sense of Humor

puts Everything in Perspective and Makes Everything Easier.

We taught these things to you

in spite of everyone’s chastisement to “be easy on her” and “she’s only a little kid”

and we taught them to you

much Earlier in Life than your Peers learned them —

and sometimes Teaching You was Hard on us, … as well as you.

We hope you like The Way You Turned Out … We do.