Anyone who is at least as old as I am might remember those words to a popular late 1960's song. That was forty plus years ago. My how time flies when you think you have all the time in the world.
When I was seventeen, most days I thought I had all the time in the world. The death of a classmate from cancer kind of gave me an idea that life just might be uncertain. No one in my family even knew that I had thoughts of death except my mother.
When I was fifteen, I had a diary. It was pink (of course) and had one of those dinky locks designed to give a child a false sense of security. I wrote my most private thoughts in there. I had the typical younger brother who was always trying to read it and I tried to keep it hidden. I learned too late that hiding something under a mattress or under my pillow was not really a hiding place when your mother washes clothes and bed linens once a week.
At fifteen with hormones raging, body changing and interests wandering seriously toward boys it was inevitable that I would put in writing my deepest, darkest thoughts. I had a summer romance which consisted of meeting this boy at the public pool almost everyday. We never went anywhere. He never bought me anything, not even a soda. We talked and we swam. A week before school started, he asked me to go steady. I was elated. We never even shared a kiss. We barely held hands and I was overjoyed.
School started and that first day was great! I had a steady boyfriend and my classes were great. Before lunch he came up to me and asked for his ring. He said he wanted to get it cleaned. Of course I handed it right over to him. He barely got out of sight when I saw him hand it to another girl who had that same foolish grin that I had just seconds before.
Of course when I got home, I wrote in my diary how devastated I was and how life was not worth living. Several days later, my mind on other things, my mother confronts me. She actually burst into my room after I had gone to sleep.
She yells at me that I am stupid and have no idea what life is all about. At that moment, I had no clue as to what she was referencing. She kept telling me I was stupid and asking me how I could write something like that and all the time she is haranguing me I am wondering what her problem is. Somewhere between the screaming of the fifteenth and the twentieth stupid it occurred to me that she had read my diary.
She informed me that there was nothing private in the house and she would read whatever whenever she chose. So, I did what any teenage girl would do under the circumstances. I burned my diary and never started another while I lived at home.
At my age, I have started another diary of sorts. This blog is probably the closest I have come to having a diary or journal in awhile. It is not so much a recounting of the days events as much as it is a look back. More than anything it is an autobiography with some embellishments here and there when I write my stories which I post on another blog.
If there is anything that I can tell a mother who finds their child's journal it is this. Do not scream and yell at them about the contents. Keep your mouth shut. Watch them. Give them a chance to come to you.
You scream. You yell. You accuse. You drive them away. I believe that it is okay for parents to be nosy and read those private thoughts. Just keep them to yourself and remember those things so you can use opportunities to instruct them; to guide them in the right direction. It might just keep you and them out of trouble. You may learn what your child really thinks and it may not be as bad as you think. There is always the chance that it is worse, but then you are armed with information not ammunition.
Do not forget that what you read may only be feelings but to your child they can seem like life and death, and those feelings may just need to be written not necessarily broadcast.
I do not care what anyone says. Being a child in today's world is much more difficult than it was when I was a child. There are many more opportunities for disaster today. They have the internet, cell phones and all manner of incorrect information coming at them from every direction.
Be a parent all the time, not just at your convenience or when your job allows. Do not wait until they are teenagers to get involved. Know who your child is. Listen to them. Do not just try bullying them into submission. That only works for most 2-year-olds and younger.
Teach them at home from the BIBLE. When they start school, help them with their homework. Know what they are being taught. Know their friends. Keep the lines of communication open.
I would like to think that I did some of the above with my own child, but one can never be sure. We never really know what kind of parent we have been until... Well, I am not sure that we ever truly know. Good parents can have bad children and bad parents can have good children. But do not take what I just wrote as a license to be a bad parent. Always do the best job you can.
Rely on GOD for HIS Wisdom. After all, HIS SON gave everything HE had for a bunch of sinners and ingrates. Do not compare yourself to others. Look to HIM for HIS advise.
Shalom. Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem.
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