Commitments and Parenting

But does it really need to be this hard?

What might seem like a small trivial decision is holding a great weight over my shoulders. Our teenage-son was asked to a attend the big Homecoming dance by a friend from another school district. We were excited for him getting to know new friends and spending time with a gal whose family we happen to really like. I had seen pictures of the dress, we had discussed corsages, permission forms had been signed, and dinner plans were made.

So the news, five days before homecoming, that he wasn’t going to go with her because he had a new girlfriend was less than disappointing. Not necessarily because we like his would-have-been-date… but because he made a commitment. And he broke the commitment.

I stood before him yesterday evening, when he told me I didn’t need to order a corsage, dumb-founded. My words had left my brain. My thoughts had turned to mush. The boy who I am always so proud of had left me feeling disappointed.

He walked away knowing I wasn’t happy, through my words and actions. He got the same feeling from his father. When hubs and I re-grouped later that evening we both were left with this gnawing feeling of wrong-doing and yet understood that his was our son’s decision to make.

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. – Proverbs 22:6

Hubs and I aren’t perfect. Perhaps we need to take a moment and think about how we treat commitments. Are we teaching *J* and his younger brothers how important they are? Do we keep our own commitments, no matter how small? It did leave me taking some important time to reflect.

And yet our own children are not a perfect-reflection of who we are. We can take the time to show our children the right way to go, but it is their decision to follow the right path, especially as they get older and start to spread their wings.

I hope our own child will take a lesson from this decision he has made. I can only pray that Hubs and I handled it correctly. Perhaps this was a small pebble thrown into the lake of his mind. The effects will ripple and important future-decisions will be affected by this one.

We love our children, far greater than they can comprehend! I only hope that in the love we show them they will take the right paths for their future!