I found something written a few years back...at the beginning of writing a book stage. Pretty fun read.
Enjoy!
You are what you see…
I've heard it said so many times…”that show doesn't affect
me at all. I can watch it and it will never change the way I think or act…” Well, as much as we’d like that to be true,
it simply is not. We really become like
the world that is around us. We start
speaking like what we hear, living like what we see and acting like the people
that we spend the most time with. Having
children simply has opened my eyes to this fact. My kids are just like I am! The things I see in them that I don’t like are
the exact same things that I see in me.
I have so many stories as a mom that completely demonstrates
this truth.
Of course as parents we have things that we
say that we’d never want our children to say.
My husband and I bought a brown and tan miniature daschund named Rudy
about a year after we got married. We
already had a cat, but we always wanted a dog, so while we were yet childless,
we decided to go ahead and make the plunge.
Actually, Chris decided to get Rudy without my knowledge. I was away for a weekend retreat and he said
he had a surprise for me when I returned.
It was a great surprise, except for all the “accidents” that happened in
the house that always needed to be cleaned up.
I remember waking up at about 2 am to that lovely smell of Rudy’s
“accident” during the night and having to clean up a mess on our carpet. That
was NEVER fun. After the initial stages
of dog ownership passed and Rudy became house trained, he became like a child
to us. Let me just say, he was not
lacking any attention whatsoever. Rudy,
as he well knew, was the main object of all our affection until that dreaded
day (at least in Rudy’s eyes it was dreaded) when Laurin, our oldest was
born. Rudy and the cat, Naomi, then got
the shaft. I think it was then that they decided to form a pact that they were
going to get our attention back, no matter what it took. They were merely animals now that there was a
child, our precious daughter, in the house.
Well, to make a long story short, they both started to go around marking
their territory on just about everything in the house. The cat would mark her territory (that, or
the litter box hadn’t been changed in a while) and then Rudy would follow suit
behind her to “cover it up.” The corners
of our couch were always saturated with urine and the carpet had been used as a
restroom so much that there were light yellow stains that we couldn’t get
out. Needless to say, we would get very
upset when we’d step in or find that common wet spot on the corner of our bed,
and some near expletives would come out of our mouths. “That freakin’ dog! He
is so stupid! Rudy come here, you
dummy!” So, when Rudy and Laurin had a
few days with the grandparents, Rudy decided to pull a fast one at their house
too. He peed on the corner of my
parents’ bed, and guess who found it?
Laurin did. The first thing out
of her mouth, as a 2-year old, was exactly what we did NOT want her to say, but
exactly what she’d heard us say when Rudy did that kind of thing. “You freaking dog, Rudy!” And of course her Grammy was right there
listening to every word. “Where did you
learn to talk like that, Laurin?” she asked.
“Well, mommy says that when Rudy pees on her bed!”
While I could’ve said a lot worse things, to my mom, hearing
that expression coming out of her 2 year old granddaughter’s mouth wasn’t that
appealing. I’m sure she got a good laugh
out of it, but she was surprised that I, her daughter that she raised to not
say things like that, would actually let something like that slip. Yes, it is definitely the truth. We become
like what we are around. It is
inevitable. I have story after story
like this with my kids, so I’ll share one more...
I absolutely love the movie “Hairspray.” It has great music in it, and it is definitely
a clean, family movie, right? Well,
that’s what I thought until we decided to let our kids watch it. Hope and Laurin, just like their mommy, fall
in love with the music and the characters and would go dancing around the house
singing at the top of their lungs, “Good Morning Baltimore!” We even downloaded the soundtrack and would
dance and sing to it while we were in the van.
There’s not much music out there that will make you dance and sing like
the music that is in “Hairspray.” Not to
mention, Link, the main actor, is kind of cute too! It was adorable to watch
the kids with their fake microphones going around the house singing until one
day we realized that she picked up much more than just the good music. The one and only bad word in the movie that
comes out of the handsome Link’s is the one Hope decided to learn. While the kids were spending the night with
Nana and Grandpa(Chris’s mom & Dad) one evening and they were tucking her in to go to sleep,
she proceeded to tell Nana to “kiss my
a__!” Nana, of course, was very
surprised and told Hope that she probably shouldn’t say that word. After saying
good night I’m sure she got a great laugh and probably wondered what in the
world her parents were letting her watch!
While there definitely is some humor in these stories, there
is a deep truth that simply watching these kids has made me realize. What goes into our minds and hearts, WILL
come out one day. It will—no questions asked. It is so important that we not only teach our
kids not to say certain words or to watch certain things, but that we also keep
ourselves from being around others and watching certain things that would cause
us to say and do things that we’d never want our children to do. I mean, why have a double standard? If we’re going to make sure the kids eat a
balanced diet and don’t watch bad movies, why would we treat ourselves any
differently? It just doesn’t make sense.
We’ve all heard it said many times before that “our actions speak louder
than our words.” It doesn’t matter what
we say nearly as much as what we do, right?
I know, at
least for me, I want to be the best me that I can be. Sometimes it means we need to cut out things
that we might enjoy, so we can be better in a certain area of life. Maybe we’re extremely impatient with our
husbands or children and don’t treat them the way we would like to. Well, maybe we should surround ourselves with
friends who encourage us to get better in these areas…friends who’ll encourage
us to grow to be better. The more we
spend time with people we want to be like, the more we really will start
possessing the qualities that drew us to them in the first place. It’s just like our children. We never want them to hang out with “the bad
crowd” because we know that we don’t want them to become that way. It’s the same for us! We shouldn’t be watching the shows or
surrounding us with people who do things that aren’t the way we want to be. Granted, nobody’s perfect, but you get what I
mean. You might even want to look in the
mirror and ask “Am I someone people naturally want to be around because I’m a
good example?” If so, great! If not, then maybe you should start looking
around at the people you hang out with the most. Are their negative attitudes and words
affecting who you are and the way you act?
Just
remember that what goes in always comes out…whether it’s good or bad! So, it’s simple. Just keep putting more and more encouraging
“stuff” inside, and watch yourself gradually change for the better.
