What have we done to our children?

I have been thinking a lot about how we raise our children.  I am no expert.  I have only raised on child and I don't think I did a very good job of it.  

Let me explain, my daughter is a very anxious person and tends to be depressed.  For her good side she is a very creative and interesting person.  So very cleaver and smart.  I love talking to her and would probably be her friend, if she was not my daughter.  I like her. She never did get over the divorce of her parents even though she was far to young to remember us ever being married.  

I will say I did the best I could with the parenting skills I had and read books, attended classes and listened to hours of advice from anyone who would give me some.  I tried to adapt my parenting skills to the behavior of my child but in the end it was the way it was and she turned out the way she is now.  

The way I raised her was to think for herself and be independent.  I was very hard on her and insisted she learn how to make a home and keep a home.  My goal was that, if I died she would be able to manage a home on her own.  That girl fought me tooth and nail every step of the way because she said that none of her friends had to do or learn any of these things.  I did not care.  I wanted her to know how to can food, preserve food, store food, make food from scratch, live on the tiniest of budgets all without thinking about it.  

I wanted her to be able to sew.  I had to learn that one as an adult.  I still can't really sew.  My child can sew way better than I can.  To be able to clean a house and organize a home from top to bottom until it shines and sparkles.  Now, I will say my daughter is a lot like her father.  Not organized at all and really messy.  Like Linus from the Peanuts.  It is like she lives in a dirt cloud and shreds of paper and mess follow her around.  However, I know she knows how to do it.  She chooses to not be organized at this time.  Completely different things.  Her father on the other hand had no clue how to organize himself.  It was like watching a monkey trying to put a round peg in a square hole.  When I realized she was just like him, I made every effort to teach her and give her the skills so she could choose to be organized and clean, when she need to be.  

I made sure she was educated and basically went through each step of her school with her.  I sent her to private school.  Special classes and lessons.  Every single day I monitored her homework and schoolwork all the way through the 12th grade and made sure she was successful.  I wanted her to be able to attend the best college of her choice and major in anything other than theatre or choir.  I refused to pay for those.  You don't need a degree for that.  To be honest I was exhausted after she graduated.  I refused to let her fail.  

However, I promised myself that I would give my only child 150% of my effort every day to get her to her goal.  I promised her that I would pay for four years of college and everything that went with it.  I told her that, if she dropped out she was on her own.  No go backs.  

I did that for a reason.  She is so much like her father.  Identical in personality and behavior that is it scary.  He and she are the kind of people that no matter how much you give them, they will keep taking and not appreciate the gift because they are not the ones who earned the gift in the first place.  I hope that makes sense.  Her father kept taking the financial gift of school from his parents over and over and never finished.  No matter what the configuration was he could not finish until he paid for it himself and chose what he wanted to do.  

So, I was hopeful that she would be able to do it the first time but in my heart I knew that she wouldn't because she is who she is.  She needs to do it on her own with her own money in her own time with her terms.  You see she has to earn her way to feel good about it.  Just like climbing a mounting.  Only you can climb the mountain to get to the top.  

I do feel bad that I am not financially supporting my daughters schooling.  I can't help myself.  I want to.  Everyday, I wish I could just write her a big check and let her go to school on me.  Then I know that would be like giving crack to the addict.  She would learn nothing and would most likely just drop out and waste her time and my money.  It would be bad and disappointing for both of us.  So, I don't go there.  

So, all this background, why?  I keep thinking that I could have done a better job raising her.  Maybe, if I stayed with her dad no matter what she would not have been so traumatized and been more focused and able to stick to things?  I won't ever know.  I am sure that, if I stayed with her dad I would be a very unhappy women and he would be a very unhappy man but she would be a much happier young person.  Maybe?  If I knew for sure that was the case, I think I would have taken the bullet.  Heck, I would do anything to make my daughter happier and more successful.  

Why?  Because I think I was selfish in my unhappiness and thinking of only of myself.  It really hurt my child and how she turned out.  I cannot change the past but I realize now that it hurt her and I am so very sorry for being so selfish.  However, because of my divorce from her father, I have grown up and I like me so much better.  I would never have understood that I was selfish in the first place and continued on my path of being the unhappy beast I was.  I wonder what is worse?  

Back to parenting. I became a better parent and person after her father and I parted ways.  I became happier and the world became a brighter and marvelous place for me once again.  I was overjoyed that I had a child and woke up each day to her wonderful little face and could not wait to see what cool thing she did.  I was not like that when I was married to her father.  Life was a prison sentence and I thought I was a lifer.  I did what I had to do to survive.  

I wonder what other people do?  I see so many family configurations and see so many behavioral issues with children all the time that I cannot even begin to fathom why we have children to begin with.  I mean here we are able to produce another human being and then we do nothing but screw this perfect person up.  

Just going to the store freaks me out.  There are so many children there and all they do is scream and cry.  Snot running down their faces. They grunt at their mothers and point at items that they want.  This is more the norm then the exception.  It is so rare to see a clean, well behaved, content child that I am almost stunned, when I do see one.  

In surgery, I see young girls of 13 or younger with completely shaved pubic areas and tattoos.  What the hell?  These girls are probably more sexually experience than I will ever me.  Do their mothers allow or encourage this?  

I hear of parents not being involved with their children's educations and then find it amazing that they barley graduate high school or cannot get a GED.  Duh....and your surprised?  Then they live at home for an eternity without a job or direction.   They stay children forever.  Children forever in the bodies of adults?  I know of 30 or 40 year olds who never have had real jobs and their 60 or older mothers and fathers work while they stay home and play video games.  What?

I realize I am hard on my only child and I make her live on her own and pay her own way because she chose to drop out of college and she chose to live on her own.  She wanted to be an adult and manage herself.  She is almost 21.  She is an adult therefore she will do and speak as an adult always.  I do not understand grown men and women living as children forever in their parents homes.  

I am told that it is hard out in the real world.  Yes, it is very hard.  I know.  I live here to.  I work here and pay bills here just like my daughter does.  I have helped her from time to time.  Just enough but not to much that it would be enabling to her.  

Just because life is hard does not mean it should not be lived.  I think it is good for our children to suffer and live with four or more roommates and learn to budget their money.  They do not need the best of everything.  They need to be independent and not have mommy and daddy saving them.  Just my humble opinion.  They need to have it hard to they can appreciate, when it is good.  

I think we have done a disservice to our children and given them to much and done to much for them in this generation.  I think we have enabled them to be big babies and that we need to stop right now and cut them loose.  They need to figure this living stuff on their own.  

What do you think?  Do you think we have done a disservice to our children or do you think we are doing the right thing by keeping them safe and at home until they are ready to fly?