What I want my daughter to know

As Thomas Murray wrote, “Wait until you have children; your life will never be the same again”. I know now what he meant by that perfectly. My daughter changed me in a way I never thought possible. Before she came along I was lost and did not know where I’d go, but now I have a reason to live for, and something worth fighting for.

I want her to know certain things in life, some of which I myself found out after Nadia came along. You can teach a kid two plus two is four but that lesson has an end. To teach a child about life’s lesson takes a lifetime itself.

• I want her to understand the absolute profound relationship between Happiness and Love. I want her to know that Love is something which cannot be explained and it is something which has to be shown and that happiness cannot be measured with lengths of time. I won’t be able to tell her how I love her mother; it is something which we have to show her.
• “Life is not lived in a lifetime or season, but in sunny mornings and snowy afternoons, in picnic yards, in waiting for a Childs fever to break, in sitting quietly with your husband or wife on a Wednesday night. That if you can’t find happiness here, you will not find it in the horizon”.
• A parent owes children a good grasp of honesty and integrity. Human integrity has the same advantages as structural Integrity- both hold things together through hell and high water.
• The world is about people, we all get from them no more than what we give, we will always be happier when we love more than we hate, when we help more than we hurt.
• The only one bit of real magic in this life that can truly move mountains and turn dreams into things she can touch and feel and see and enjoy. And that magic is called “Believing in yourself”.
• Whatever we think we can achieve. I want my child to understand that if she believes in herself, she can use her energy to work towards what she wants to be or to do, and not in wondering whether she’s good enough to try. For worry will wear her out as fast as work, and worse will tie her down to the starting line.
• There is nothing like a good man or a good woman. And whatever they most want their work to bring them- Respect, Satisfaction, Praise, Money, and Security, becoming and being a good man or a good woman will bring her to sooner than anything else.
• I’d give my Child a sense of security and hope that she develops enough of a willingness and ability to think that she will feel comfortable with an open mind. A doctor might tell my child that what she eats everyday may determine how long she will live, but length of life depends on what we think. Those with an open mind- the real artists, philosophers, writers, thinkers- often seem to live a long life. I would agree with the author of “ A Child to Change your life” , that it is because attitudes more than age or energy levels make people seem old or young; because people who never close their minds, who never mentally retire seldom seem to let down physically or spiritually either. They never lose a kind of childlike appetite for what comes next and always seem to be listening to a little prodding and pushing them to never miss a sunrise.
• Let children come to you on their own term, do not impose yourselves upon them, I won’t use my daughters small being to ease my anxieties. I’d let her decide how much attention she needs how much love she want displayed and when. I’d try and be a great reservoir of strength she could dip into at will. I’d never try to drive my daughter from me by overwhelming her with my moods.

These excerpts are from various books I read and I added my own to them. ®