Article By LaTonia Owens:: EEW Magazine Parenting
I had babies young. I was 16 when I first got pregnant. By the time I was 20, I had 3 children already. I tied my tubes at 21.
At the time, I was living the life, so I thought. Partying every night, having different men run in and out of my life, and living only for myself was all I knew. I didn’t really think about how my decisions would impact my children in the future. For me, it wasn’t that deep.
Grown folks do grown folks things and children stay in their place. That was my philosophy.
It wasn’t until I grew up, found God and started seeing some consequences of my actions manifesting in my children, who were repeating some of my bad habits, that it hit me.
What we do as parents really matters. How we live in front of our children, makes a truly huge impact. The “do as I say, not as I do” theory does not work.
I know.
I have tried it.
But now that my eyes are open to the errors of my ways, I cannot do anything to reverse and undo the mistakes I made. For a long time, I suffered from parental guilt. Every blunder, hair-brained decision and screwed up step the children I gave birth to made, I somehow made into my fault.
I felt like I had failed them. I wasn’t a good mother. I slipped up too many times.
I went to talk to my First Lady one day, after crying all night about something my 16-year-old did that reminded me of a stupid move I had made at her age.
“They are repeating my old cycles and it’s all my fault,” I told the pastor’s wife. I was dramatically crying and wailing about it.
Then she pulled out her Bible and calmly read the entire chapter of Ezekiel 18, all 30 verses. At first, I didn’t understand. But then she explained to me a proverb that Israel would say: “The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
That ancient saying meant the children were paying for the sins of the parents.
I thought, yep, I knew it. She is validating what I feel.
But then, she interpreted the passage for me and explained, God shut that philosophy about divine judgment being handed down to the children because of their ancestors' blunders. The Lord taught Israel, instead, that He would not punish their offspring for their bad choices, and that everyone was accountable for their own actions.
If the children did the right thing, they would be blessed. If not, they wouldn't. Simple as that.
“Your children have to live for themselves,” First Lady said. “Even if you did make some mistakes, we all have. But you are on the right track now. All you can do is pray for them, teach them the right way to go, and leave them in God’s hands.”
We talked for about an hour and I felt so liberated when I left. Even though she acknowledged that our children do, in fact, learn to imitate what they see, they can also un-learn certain things with our help and the help of the Lord.
I often read Ezekiel 18 to remind myself of the personal accountability we all have, including our children, to God.
Here are 4 things to teach your children:
1. God will judge you based on your actions alone, not mine
2. I am human and imperfect. I make mistakes. If you see me fall, it doesn’t mean it’s okay
3. You cannot get to heaven on my salvation. You have to work out your own soul’s salvation
4. Don’t strive to be like me. Strive to be like Christ
Guilt and regret are wastes, because nothing good comes of those things.
It is better to learn from the past, do better going forward, and trust that the same God who brought you this far, will do the same for your children.
Do you ever struggle with parental guilt? Was this helpful to you?