Alright granted I don't have kids yet. I do have nieces, nephews, and Godchildren. I know most people tell me it isn't the same. Ok, maybe your right. The point is I am the type of person who cares about people and when I get close to people I take them in under my wing. So when I am in charge of taking care of someone's kids or I chose to open my home to people I know I tend to take on the caregiver role.
This may sound like a good thing to some people, but the people who have seen how much I give up to those people and how often people take advantage of me will tell you it can get bad. Not that I am going to give up caring about people or helping them. It just means I am learning to be careful about it.
Here is the thing. I have spent a good number of my time helping people whenever they need it. When a friend needs someone or something if I can help I do. If a stranger needs help and I can help I do. Up for until about 7 years ago when family needed help I helped. OK. I still help family, but there is limitations on how far I will help now. Long story and no I won't go into it. Lets just leave it as a lot of stuff happened and I am not angry I just wish I would have been smarter. No, I don't think anyone in my family purposefully went out of their way to take advantage of me. I think I just made it to easy to do so. Same with some friends.
Alright what started me on this was thinking about my nieces. I love all of them, but I do worry about where they are all going with their lives. One is turning 22 soon and has two boys from different men. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but she has a hard time keeping a job and has been having problems with finding a new one. She has a lot of potential. When she was little she wanted to be a vet and I think she could still be one if that is what she wanted. If only she would step back and look around her. She needs to decide what she wants and how she wants to get there. If she did that I know she could do whatever she wanted. First she would need to figure out what she wants and come up with a plane. The thing is when I was her age I may not have had any kids and I was still a virgin for until about a month after my 22nd birthday. I also didn't have a problem keeping a job or getting one. Yet I can't say I had life figured out either. I was living with my eldest sister and her family. I spent a lot of time working at entry level jobs like Circle K and watching my sister's kids. When I wasn't doing either of those I was out with the guy I was with. After my plans of going to college right after High School fell through I started wondering what I would do. I ended up on my second fiancee by that time. I think at some point I started thinking subconsciously that if I got married things would some how get better. I loved my second fiancee, but I am glad things didn't work out. I had a lot to learn.
The next niece of mine has a problem with being responsible and thinking about others. She left her Mom and brothers needing money that she promised to give them. Then when she came to live with my Brother and I told us she was soaring at her job. She told us she was working there from 6 am to 9 pm at night, but yet told us she couldn't pay a third of the rent, electric, and the food bill. Her only other bills were her phone and her bus card. Fine she wanted to do whatever she was doing. It doesn't matter. When I was young I had a bad habit of still thinking like I child in a parent's home. The problem with that is once your not a kid any more people expect and depend on you to be an adult. That means being honest and helping with your share. If you can't pay your share of the bills then give notice as soon as you realize you might not be able to pay. The lying and the sneaking might have been easier to get over if it wasn't for several things. One the lies were really bad and dumb lies. Not even a challenge to prove as a lie. Which is insulting. Secondly she knew we were getting a larger apartment due to her word that she would stay and try to make it work during the lease. Ok fine she didn't stay. I am not mad about that. What does upset me is this. She made plans behind our backs to leave instead of telling us when she knew she was leaving. An adult would have known that people made a budget based on the promise they made to try to make things work. A young adult sometimes doesn't realize this. They are still thinking about what it was like when someone was taking care of them. Not everyone is like that. Some of us were smarter then others. Even though I knew my actions may effect others I still made mistakes that I know hurt people. I didn't do those things on purpose and I hope my niece didn't either. All I can say is I hope at some point my niece realizes that she needs to take responsibility for her actions. At some point she needs to think before she acts.
Then there is the niece who is about to become an adult and yet has a tendency of acting like an adult. She is beautiful, smart, and talented in many ways. She has a load of potential. Currently though she dropped out of school and hasn't gotten a GED the last I heard. All the things a parent wants in there child she had and due to puberty or whatever it is she seems to have a huge chip on her shoulder. My worry is that she won't realize that life is to short to be angry all the time. Hopefully she realizes how much she was given in life before she is 30 and realizes her life has passed by. Thankfully being thirty doesn't mean that your life is over. It just means you have less time to make things happen before your body gives out and seniality hits. Granted she thinks writing and self publishing a book will save her from her mistakes. Could happen, but realistically that takes time and lots of work to get your name noticed. There are a lot of writers who don't get known ever. Then a handful who only get appreciated after they are dead due to family or friends pushing the point for them. The ones who make it while a live usually spend a lifetime writing and trying to get discovered. The ones who get discovered spend a lot of time getting their name out there. It becomes more than a full time job. It becomes more like two and a half full time jobs.Sort of like starting your own business and trying to make it successful. It can happen, but you have to work at it. Hopefully she realizes that. I know she can write and she has the talent. I just don't know if she realizes how much she will need to do to get there and that it will probably be a hard road.
So here is the part about why we need to remember our own youthful past when looking at the younger generation. Every person had to grow after leaving their parent's home. That path may have been easier for some then others. Yet each of us made mistakes and each of us had to learn. Whatever path we took our families probably worried about us. Whatever we are feeling now about our kids, our nieces, nephews, or anyone in the younger generation that we care about probably is what our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and family friends all thought about us at one point or another. Do I worry about the kids that I know? Yes, of course I do. I love them. I want them to have a better life then I did. I want them not to make the same mistakes I did. I never want them to look back at their lives and think what if. The thing is we all at some point look back and think what if. It is human nature. Some of us think of that question more than others and dwell on it longer than others. Everyone makes stupid mistakes when we are young. Sometimes those mistakes become blessings such as beautiful, smart children that make us better people. Other times those mistakes land us in jail or get our house robbed. There are mistakes like marrying the wrong person. Mistakes are a fact of life. Age allows us to look back and see what we did wrong. Which is why when we see those we love heading down the same paths or worse we try to guide them away from those paths. There may even be times we get frustrated with them due to our concern. This sometimes even goes for the people that are older than us. Such as siblings. : ) Ok. I worry about my sisters and brother as well. All those years of them looking after me I now want to look after them.
Just try to keep in mind when you love people the events that lead you where you are now and what you felt like during those times. Be forgiving and do your best to be supportive. It is hard.Trust me I know. I am still trying to learn how to step back and let people make their mistakes. I can't stop them any more than other people could stop me from doing the things I did when I was young or I do now. Maybe some day I will learn to keep my mouth shut when I know they won't listen or to let it go when people do stupid stuff. Either way I am still a work in progress and so are my niecey poos. I hope they realize I love them and that is why I get irritated and worried.
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