more musings and ramblings and pondering and such

It's incredible how the people we love the most are the ones who we hurt the most or are hurt by the most. Wether we mean it or not or for whatever reason or excuses we use or hide behind. This morning I had to fight with my children, I didn't want to fight but I tire of their laziness and insolence and lack of discipline and disrepect. My daughters are 12, 11, and 5 years old. They are still just children, little girls who are growing up fast.
I expect some rebellion from my children, it's supposed to happen, but how do I teach my girls about life and living and love and all that a father is supposed to teach his daughters ? It's not easy being a father, much harder being a husband to their mother. I love my daughters and their mother feels I'm too hard on them. Nothing I do to those girls will ever be as hard or harsh or cruel as life and the world will be to them later. I can only prepare them for that. I'm not a wealthy man, not monetarily, so I can not shower them with whatever material possessions they may want. It's almost all I can do to send them to catholic school. I feel a private education is good for them. An education is priceless and it doesn't end with the classroom, it keeps on going for the rest of our lives.
My own parents were divorced when I was four years old, I have only a handful of memories of my parents together,all good memories. I saw my father on weekends and holidays. My dad was an "absentee father", I didn't grow up under his roof. He did not have to contend with his sons, not like my mother did.
My mother provided for us as best she could, a single mother always working. My mother is a strict disciplinarian as was her mother and as is still her father. We did not go without and we were not abused, but life can be abusive and my mother did prepare us for life. She prepared us as best she could, my father tried as best he could according to the examples he had.
Dad was an abused child, his father was a philanderer and beat his children and his wife, hard drinking, hard working but short on showing love to his chidren. Dad never beat on us though, never abused us, but didn't always discipline my brother and I. How could he, he didn't know how. My fathers best friend tells me " our fathers can only love us the best way they know how". How deep and insightful and enlightening when I remember my grandfather and when I think about my father. It's not that my father doesn't love me, it's just he doesn't always know how. Consequently his son, me, will have difficulties in this area also. I still have my mothers example.
My parenting style is very much like my mothers and my grandfathers, the true father figures in my life. Yes I can be hard and harsh, yes it does hurt, I'm sure it hurt my mother also. But my conscience is clear, I'm not guilty about disciplining my children, only contending with the feelings of how to go about it right and dealing with my emotions. I'm not above slapping my girls or lording over them if they will learn. It's not easy and they will not understand now or today or next week or next month, but one day with their own children or with a situation in life later on they will remember; I know they will because their father does. Their father remembers the lessons his mother taught him as his mother remembers the lessons her parents taught her. If it's done right it's an unbroken chain, an unending assembly line of love and discipline passed on from parent to child. Love is discipline and discipline is love, sometimes love hurts.

my second ever blog

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my very first blog

This is my very first blog and, like losing ones viginity, it's a little awkward at first, but I'll get used to it. It's amazing what you can get used to in life. I'm new to computers and am learning. Until recently, my computer skills were limited to cruising the internet, emailing, listening to cds or watching dvds, real kids stuff. My daughters know more about computers and how to really use them than I do. The thought can be a little scary when one considers what's available on the internet. I don't even know how to type, just hunt and peck.

Anyway, more to follow later. Must be dashing off now to pay bills, do shit around the house and such. Spending too much time in front of a computer can rot the brain.