Raising good little humans. That’s the long-term plan of all parents, right?
For my husband and I, we have one main goal when it comes to our children; raise kids who are good human beings. Sure, doing well in school is important and we always encourage them to do their best, but I’m not going to freak out if they come home with a C in French. If they come home and tell me they were disrespecting a teacher, or being mean to another child, I WILL freak out.
To me, being a good person is more important than good grades. Other parents may disagree with me, and that’s okay. In no way am I saying that I don’t think education is important. Trust me, we enforce how important education is and how it can shape the rest of their lives. We encourage them every single day to do their best and study for tests, so they have good study habits for when they really need it in high school and beyond. Right now, both our boys do very well in school, and we think that’s amazing. It’s even better that both of them WANT to do well in school. But for us, good grades aren’t everything. They’re only part of a bigger picture.
I don’t know about you, but when I go to a parent-teacher conference at school and my son’s teacher tells me he’s awesome in math, really excels in music, and aces all his spelling tests, I’m proud. Absolutely. But when she tells me what a kind and thoughtful kid he is, how much he likes helping his classmates and how respectful and polite he is to his friends and teachers – my heart completely melts. That’s the kind of stuff I love to hear. The kind of stuff that makes you really proud as a parent. That’s when you know you’ve got to be doing something right, you know?
We’ve talked to both of our boys recently about what they want to be when they grow up. Our youngest has his heart set on being a professional athlete when he’s older. Preferably an NFL player. So, we explained to him that he can definitely strive for that, but he still has to do well in school because he needs a good education to fall back on, just in case he gets injured. He agreed and he also said that he needs to be nice to people because NFL teams won’t want him on their team if he’s mean and not a good teammate. I smiled. Talent is one thing, but who you are as a person is what’s most important. He apparently seems to get that, and that makes me incredibly happy.
At the end of the day, this world needs good people. Kind, caring, thoughtful, generous people. I read a quote online that said…
“Your greatest accomplishment in life may not be something you do…but someone you raise”.
It kind of stuck with me, and I genuinely hope it’s true.
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