Well, after a long period of absence, it's time to get back to my blog, and get on with creating the life we want to live.
It's been a challenging couple of years, with lessons learned, and paths changed.
We are now 'officially' empty nester's - having slogged the hard roads with my husbands two youngest children, and have seen them set off on their own paths in life - and their own lessons to learn.
One finds that you can GIVE children the opportunity to rise above the mentality of welfare dependence they were raised with in their mother's home - but you can't make them TAKE the opportunities. Many times people find it easier to continue on the familiar path, rather than choose to step outside the box and do something different with their lives.
As my very wise mother would say, 'it's not your path to walk', so we must let them return to the life of living with one's hand out, rather than grasping the offered hand up.
Do I sound jaded? Well, yes, I probably am - after four children through our home with the same unfortunate result - one does get that way. You can show them other ways of doing things, and expose them to the many opportunities that this wonderful country offers, but the choice is always ultimately theirs.
So, you send them on to their greater good - and hope to goodness they find it at some point, rather than follow the path laid out for them by their other parent.
As a woman who comes from a LONG line of very strong women, I cannot imagine living the rest of my life blaming others for my misfortunes and lack of opportunities - all the while refusing to see what is placed in front of me for the taking, if I only choose to reach out and grasp it.
Now we let them go, and get on with creating the life we want to live - and as the old saying goes about one door closing and another opening...
Well, we've opened that new door. :-)
Onward and upward...
2 comments:
I worked for many years in schools where living on welfare was generational. I firmly believed that education could have broken the cycle for these children, especially the girls who could look forward to a teenage pregnancy or more. But they would miss so much school and get so far behind :-/ You and your husband have given his children some foundations there so you just never know! Enjoy your time being a couple on your own...you've deserved it!
Well said Maria!
And that's all we can do - give them foundations.
Sadly, their mother is the ONLY one like this in her family. Her parents and siblings were/are all hard working, educated people who have created stable environments for their children.
One never knows why people choose to deliberately make choices that do not serve them well in the long run, and why they continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.
But, as my mother would say: 'It's not your path to walk.'
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