When I started high school, I made a chart that included the four years that I would attend high school and spaces to map out which seven classes that I would take each semester. (I'm annoyingly left-brained. I know.) I used this to plan out which classes I would need to graduate with the highest-level diploma possible. My goals were very high and I needed a plan to achieve them.
When I was in Young Women's (the organization for 12-18-year-old girls of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), I listed all the things I needed to do to reach my goal of being married in the Temple for time and all eternity. [Please go to lds.org to learn more.]
When I started college, I did the same thing that I did in high school. I made a chart so I would know what classes I needed to achieve my goal of graduating from college with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering (actually, I started as an Electrical Engineering major, but that quickly changed when I took the electrical portion of my Physics series. Eww.). This was a little more difficult because I met and married an amazing man in the middle of my college career (reaching my goal of a Temple marriage, btw), so I had to alter things just slightly; but I did, in fact, graduate with my desired degree. It took me six years instead of four, but I had a beautiful baby girl along the way. (She looked so cute at my graduation exercises in her little University dress!)
My husband and I are both extremely left-brained. I know I mentioned that about myself, but it's extreme enough that it bares repeating. ☺ (I know I made other lists and plans while growing up, I just can't remember the specifics.) While we were engaged, we spent many hours talking about our future life together and about the family that we wanted to raise. We talked about so many things. He (actually his dad) was slightly worried about how important it was to me that I graduate from college. His mom had stayed home and raised their children and he and his dad were hoping that I would want to do the same. That is exactly what I anticipated doing, but I also wanted to fulfill my goal of graduating from college. I knew that having a college degree would be very beneficial in case something unforeseen occurred and I needed to work outside the home, and more importantly, it was a goal that I had set for myself many years before.
Anyway, we knew that we both wanted me to stay at home and raise our children (with his help, obviously). We knew that we wanted to raise our children with a religious foundation. We knew that although we would live out of state for a season while my husband finished his postgraduate education, we would eventually move back to our home state to raise our children around grandparents and cousins. I don't remember everything that we planned, but we did plan out the big, important things. I didn't realize at the time that we should have planned out the little things also.
Just as I made plans and goals and charts to achieve my big goals in life, I've realized that we need to have a plan in place as we begin raising our families. I suppose that in a way we did have a plan, but looking back, I think we should have been more specific and detailed and conscious of what we were doing. We should have had smaller, more detailed bullet points under our larger goals. We should have listed and talked about (and maybe we did and I just don't remember; you know, being twitterpated and all) how exactly we were going to achieve our goal of such an awesome family.
Most of what I want to include in this blog falls under the specifics that needed to be a part of those initial conversations. I wish I would have written down some of what we discussed. Maybe I didn't because I didn't want to scare him off with how analytical I was about things. (He turned out to be even more analytical than I am, but I'm sure that's part of why I was attracted to him in the first place.) Actually, I think I'll retrieve my old journals from under our bed and look back to see if I did write down anything that was discussed. If I find anything useful, I'll include it in a later post.
Trust me when I say that a plan is needed for everything worthwhile that you do, especially when raising a family. Goals are an important part of life if you want to progress and become better everyday; otherwise you just end up "going through the motions" of day-to-day living, and what's the purpose of that? Every time I've set a goal and made the necessary plans to achieve that goal (and stuck to them), I've been successful. If you haven't already thought about what your goals are in raising your family, it's never to late to begin.
This I've Learned.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
First Ever Blog Post
Okay, here we go....
I've resisted doing a blog for a long time, although I've been thinking about it for probably a year now. I've wanted to write down my thoughts about raising children and this is a way to force me to do it. For the last week I've been writing blog posts in my head rather than falling asleep, which tells me that it's finally time to do this.
The first thing that I want to point out is that these are my thoughts that I want to record to help my children as they start their own families. There will be a lot of references to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because it is a part of who I am. If you choose to be offended by those references, please choose to not read this blog. (I guess that's if anyone reads this in the first place.☺) If you have something nice to say, please do. If you have something mean to say, please use your time in a more productive way rather than hurting someone's feelings (mine).
So here is the reasoning behind this blog: Other than the scriptures, there really aren't any truly practical manuals for raising children. I'm talking like the recipe books that include meals that your family will actually eat as opposed to the elaborate meals that make me say, "Yeah, right. My spaghetti/mac & cheese/hot dog-loving children will never eat that." I feel like I've learned so many things from actually raising my children and living through it. There are things that I wish I had done differently, and there are things that worked out really well and I think to myself, "Wow, that was awesome! Go me!" Because I can't go back and do things over with my experience-based knowledge (and I really don't want to start over by having more babies!), I decided that I want my children to benefit from what I've learned. I realize that they may or may not listen and learn from my mistakes/triumphs, but at least I will have tried to help. I've always tried to watch other people in various aspects of life to learn from them. There are actually several families who are about five years ahead of us in life that I've watched over the years. Sometimes I've thought to myself, "Yep, I am so doing that." or "Nope. That isn't working well. I will definitely not do that with my children." I am truly hoping that my children will learn from my experiences and not only incorporate my great ideas (I do have a few), but weed out and change the not-so-great things that we did or didn't do.
I have no idea of how consistent I will be with this blog. As I go through my day, things will just pop into my head about different things. I'm hoping I will take the time to capture those thoughts. I'm not the best at "fleshing out" my thoughts, however. I tend to make a statement and assume that others will understand everything that fits into that statement (in college, I wrote a five-page paper, while my friend's paper was thirty-five pages long--guess who got the better grade even though we covered the same points), but I am going to really try to write down all of my feelings and not assume that others will know what I'm saying. If something helps someone else along the way, that will make this even better!
My first thought (other than the book basket--I'll save that for another day) is that we did a good thing by giving our children a religious foundation. Both my husband and I are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our membership is such a big part of our lives. It isn't just something we do on Sundays or when we think about it, it really is just who we are. It pretty much colors everything we do. We've taught our children that they are children of a Heavenly Father who knows them individually and loves them unconditionally. We've taught them to pray to Heavenly Father, that He will hear and answer their prayers. We've taught them that they have a Savior who atoned for their sins and their sorrows and who understands them and can help them throughout their lives. We've taught them why they are here on this earth, where they came from, and where they will go after this earth-life ends. Each of our children have been baptized into the Church and have developed a testimony of his or her own. Our oldest was sealed in the temple to her eternal sweetheart, two of our sons are serving missions to share this wonderful gospel with others in different parts of the world, and our two youngest are planning on serving missions. We pray everyday that our children will always remember the things that they have been taught and that they will stay true to those teachings.
I've learned that no matter what religion you choose, children need a religious foundation to ground them. They need to know that there is something bigger than just this earth. They need to know that there is a God who created all things, including them. They need to know that we are all children of God, which should make a difference in how we treat other people.
This I've Learned.
I've resisted doing a blog for a long time, although I've been thinking about it for probably a year now. I've wanted to write down my thoughts about raising children and this is a way to force me to do it. For the last week I've been writing blog posts in my head rather than falling asleep, which tells me that it's finally time to do this.
The first thing that I want to point out is that these are my thoughts that I want to record to help my children as they start their own families. There will be a lot of references to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because it is a part of who I am. If you choose to be offended by those references, please choose to not read this blog. (I guess that's if anyone reads this in the first place.☺) If you have something nice to say, please do. If you have something mean to say, please use your time in a more productive way rather than hurting someone's feelings (mine).
So here is the reasoning behind this blog: Other than the scriptures, there really aren't any truly practical manuals for raising children. I'm talking like the recipe books that include meals that your family will actually eat as opposed to the elaborate meals that make me say, "Yeah, right. My spaghetti/mac & cheese/hot dog-loving children will never eat that." I feel like I've learned so many things from actually raising my children and living through it. There are things that I wish I had done differently, and there are things that worked out really well and I think to myself, "Wow, that was awesome! Go me!" Because I can't go back and do things over with my experience-based knowledge (and I really don't want to start over by having more babies!), I decided that I want my children to benefit from what I've learned. I realize that they may or may not listen and learn from my mistakes/triumphs, but at least I will have tried to help. I've always tried to watch other people in various aspects of life to learn from them. There are actually several families who are about five years ahead of us in life that I've watched over the years. Sometimes I've thought to myself, "Yep, I am so doing that." or "Nope. That isn't working well. I will definitely not do that with my children." I am truly hoping that my children will learn from my experiences and not only incorporate my great ideas (I do have a few), but weed out and change the not-so-great things that we did or didn't do.
I have no idea of how consistent I will be with this blog. As I go through my day, things will just pop into my head about different things. I'm hoping I will take the time to capture those thoughts. I'm not the best at "fleshing out" my thoughts, however. I tend to make a statement and assume that others will understand everything that fits into that statement (in college, I wrote a five-page paper, while my friend's paper was thirty-five pages long--guess who got the better grade even though we covered the same points), but I am going to really try to write down all of my feelings and not assume that others will know what I'm saying. If something helps someone else along the way, that will make this even better!
My first thought (other than the book basket--I'll save that for another day) is that we did a good thing by giving our children a religious foundation. Both my husband and I are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and our membership is such a big part of our lives. It isn't just something we do on Sundays or when we think about it, it really is just who we are. It pretty much colors everything we do. We've taught our children that they are children of a Heavenly Father who knows them individually and loves them unconditionally. We've taught them to pray to Heavenly Father, that He will hear and answer their prayers. We've taught them that they have a Savior who atoned for their sins and their sorrows and who understands them and can help them throughout their lives. We've taught them why they are here on this earth, where they came from, and where they will go after this earth-life ends. Each of our children have been baptized into the Church and have developed a testimony of his or her own. Our oldest was sealed in the temple to her eternal sweetheart, two of our sons are serving missions to share this wonderful gospel with others in different parts of the world, and our two youngest are planning on serving missions. We pray everyday that our children will always remember the things that they have been taught and that they will stay true to those teachings.
I've learned that no matter what religion you choose, children need a religious foundation to ground them. They need to know that there is something bigger than just this earth. They need to know that there is a God who created all things, including them. They need to know that we are all children of God, which should make a difference in how we treat other people.
This I've Learned.
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