On Being a Parent

A conversation I had with a couple girlfriends had me thinking today. Parenting is the most guilt-ridden job a person can have. It's hard and rewarding; stressful and exciting; ugly and loving; overwhelming and overwhelming wonderful. Through all the good and the bad, you are always second guessing yourself wondering if you are doing the best thing. Never knowing for sure. Parents, young and old, are hard on each other as well which only adds to the guilt and stress of this business of rearing children. There is always something that is more important to a person when raising their own kids. One never lets their children watch TV but lets them eat mass amounts of junk food on a regular basis. One is fanatical about only health foods but lets their children watch million of hours of TV. One is super conscious of where the kids are at all times while the counterpart lets the kids, without supervision, run all over the neighborhood. One only dresses the kids in the best fashions, picking outfits out for each day while the other lets the kids pick out their own clothes never batting an eyelash at the mismatched pairings. I guess the point of my rambling is that nobody is perfect and nobody has the right answers. I'll say it again: nobody is perfect and nobody has the right answers. You do the best you can do at the moment and move on. We can't be too judgmental of each other without wearing the shoes of our fellow parents. As long as you love your kids and keep them safe, in the end absolutely nothing else matters.

Which brings me to my next point. Raising kids and keeping them safe is hard enough without the added stress of these horrible people who commit crimes on children. It makes me completely, out of my mind, angry and feel sick all at the same time. This morning I happened to be watching a news clip about a grandfather who was caught molesting his granddaughter. Bleh!! What the hell is wrong with our legal system that these people are NOT put to death. They can NEVER be cured and once let out of jail after serving meager sentences, they re-offend over and over again. Something has to change! Innocent children's' lives are being brutally interrupted by this filth and we let them continue to live on. I feel like throwing up!