Remember when you were pregnant with your little bundle of dreams? Oh the sweetness of what was to come, right? I imagined all the moments I’d share with each of my babies and nothing in my mind ever had anything to do with teaching them maturity.
Who even thinks of stuff like that?
Guess what? Maturity is at the top of the list for real life adulting and I’ll tell you why –>
To get an education beyond high school, a kid needs to have a certain amount of maturity. Remember, there are no mom’s at college! No one wakes you up, no one feeds you. No one forces you to go to class or to study….or do homework. All that requires some discipline which painstakingly attaches itself to maturity.
To get and hold down a real job, a kid needs to know how to work for a real life boss. Working for someone teaches responsibility and offers lessons beyond what can be taught at home. Life isn’t fair and a job gives honest experience to the real world. Plus, hard work is rewarding.
To own a home, car or pay adult bills…a kid needs to have a grasp on financial responsibilities. Money doesn’t grow on trees or come in the form of a hand-out. My hubby and I have laughed (even though it’s not really funny) about how our lives were so different than our kids at similar ages. No one paid for our cars, our rent, our school, our insurance….and yet, we made it. We lived to tell about it. Kids today are still struggling way past the age of 25. I had a baby by then.
To be a husband or wife, a kid needs to be able to think outside of themselves. One of the most disturbing handicaps we buckle to our kids is that life is ALL ABOUT THEM! This is very bad! Ask someone who’s marriage has failed due to the lack of compromise or inability to put the other person ahead of self. While loving yourself is important, loving yourself too much is dangerous.
To be a parent, a kid has to really know how to die to self. Marriage is one thing, parenting a whole nother. Babies don’t have the gift of waiting around for you to get your crap together. It’s swim or drown! Nothing in a person’s life can compare to parenting little humans, a lack of maturity will lead to failure….in more ways than one.
To be a Child of God, a kid has to know who he or she is to God. Maybe this should be our first focus as parents. Teaching our kids about God’s love for them and how important it is to love God back. Turn on the tv, watch the people rioting (in America), shop in a store, drive down a highway, stand in a line on Black Friday, make a comment on social media etc… I bet you’ll come across a few folks who DO NOT LOVE GOD and are proud to prove to you that they don’t. Loving God and respecting WHO HE IS equips us with an understanding that loving others that we disagree with or have nothing in common with is necessary to live a cohesive life here on earth.
So, see….parenting is tough. It’s full up with responsibilities and lessons. All those lessons are a direct link to our children’s maturity. Every chore, every correction, every NO, every YES, every new experience — all of these help us, help our kids…learn maturity!
What are your thoughts? Is maturity important? And are you teaching it?
PS-I love my kids! I’m amazed at how mature they are in spite of all my shortcomings as their mother. I dropped the ball too many times and I admit, they got jipped! Still, they rock!