Back to the Basics

As a mother, I often struggle with whether or not I’m doing a good job.  (Now I’m not leaving out Dads or the role of the father figure but I can only speak from a women’s perspective).  I don’t think that I am by myself in feeling this way.  There is no guide or book that can prepare you for the ever evolving role as a mother.  At times you question yourself ; is it’s too much or is it too little, with “it” being whatever is going on at the time.

If your like me, you want your children to grow into well-balanced, productive individuals who give back to their communities. Getting them to understand that there is a big world out there beyond their own, which is just as valuable.  It’s the how to, that creates the difficulty for me.  I find that the children themselves are often conflicted in sense that they enjoy the benefits of our mothering but then struggle with the accountability of gaining independence.

I often have the conversation with my mommy friends on how many of the young people today (including our own children) tend to be over indulged and lacking a sense of true empathy on things that don’t directly affect them. This didn’t just happen, we (mommies) contributed to it! Now I’m not saying this for us to beat ourselves up but instead to provide insight on the importance of  getting Back to the Basics.

Growing up, we were not involved in nearly as many organized activities, we went to free lunch, played at the local park or outside all day and honesty didn’t require all the “fuss” that our children receive. Although not intentionally, we tend to live vicariously through our children by satisfying our inner child through them.  What do I mean? All I am saying is we give our children most of what we wished we had at their age.  We are not our parents and our children are not us.  They are in no way deprived or lacking of things and therefore; we need to parent them based on who they are and what their needs are.

Once I recognized that having them actually do things they didn’t necessarily want to do wasnt going to kill them, I knew I was on the right track.  Having them bypass the video games for some family (board-game) time, visiting ailing family members regularly, serving in church ministry and/or service related activities, using their own money for birthday cards/some holiday gifts, at times taking public transportation and sitting down togther as a family during dinner, are a few of the ways I get back to the basics with my children.

I realized that, I can’t just leave it up to chance and assume that they will learn the value in the lessons of these basics if I don’t teach it to them. We are living in a different time and Brooklyn now is different from the Brooklyn yester-year that we grew upin  however; we have to make the message the same no matter where your are:  Spread Love, It’s the BrooKlyn Kisha Way!

• How do you get Back to the Basics?
• Share some fun things you do as family
• How do you teach the importance of having good character?
• Be inspired by my background picture and shout out some your childhood activites/experiences.

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