I'm totally loving today's listicles. It's making me feel like I need to call my parents and thank them for working so hard. Let's hope our girls can someday come up with 10 things that we've done right!
10 Things My Parents Did Right
1. Love for the arts. Although Richmond isn't the largest city, my parents were often taking us to the symphony, operas, musicals and museums. Ironically, I live closer to bigger cities now, but feel as though there's less opportunity to share those experiences with my children.
2. Charity. While it's important to earn your keep, my parents showed charity throughout my childhood. Whether it was participating in a charity race, serving at the Church's annual winter relief or giving blood at every possible chance; it was always important to help others in any way possible
3. Insatiable curiosity. My father is a huge history buff. He used to read my textbooks just for fun. My curiosities lie mostly in religion and faith. I just can't learn enough...and thanks to the internet, I can waste countless hours learning even more about world religions in addition to my own faith!
4. There's value in hard work. No matter what work you're doing, take pride in hat you're at least out there doing something.
5. "I'm your parent, not your friend" It may have ticked me off at the time, but I learned there was plenty of time for friendship later.
6. Dinner as a family is important. My parents worked hard; but we always ate dinner as a family up until I was in high school.
7. Fear. My father definitely perfected the ability to instill fear in me without any action. That then translated into fear of disappointing him. Sounds negative, but it helped me push to constantly improve.
8. I understand men. I'm no tomboy, but thanks to my father and brother, I've got a pretty good understanding of how the male brain works. (At least, that's what the Husband tells me!)
9. Faith is important. I know not everyone feels the same way, but being involved at our Church was mandatory at a young age. Admittedly, the Husband's involvement in the Church from the young age of18 was one of the aspects that really made me fall for him.
10 Family is the #1 Priority. Never have I doubted where my siblings and I stand. Of all things I want to pass on to my children, this is the most important.
