Jeremy C Kester

When one becomes a parent, they learn the subtle art of constantly questioning whether or not they are doing a good job as a parent. I know that question all too well myself. When my child does anything that I do not like or do not approve of, I question my skills. But generally speaking, I do my best to keep my child safe and challenged while ensuring they do what they are supposed to do, not just what they like to do.

Being a parent to myself on the other hand…

I let myself get away with so much that it is not even funny. I am, in effect, a lousy parent… to myself.

At least, I am a lousy parent when it comes to getting done the things I need to do to achieve my writing dreams.

Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t take care of the main things like going to work, wiping myself after going number 2 and then washing my hands. Eating the right things though? That’s a problem. Using my time to write or at least plan out stories: a bigger problem.

It’s funny how we are so hell bent on getting away from our parents when we are kids that we end up failing to understand that it means that we will have to learn to parent ourselves… if we want to succeed at our goals.

It is what do, right? We tell ourselves all the time what we should do versus what we shouldn’t do. We tend not to listen, however. Then we do a lousy job of holding ourselves accountable.

We need to be better parents to ourselves. If chasing our dreams were left to our childlike behaviors, we’d never get there. But if we can hold ourselves to it, if we could make ourselves do the things we ultimately don’t want to do to achieve the goals we want to achieve… maybe we’d get somewhere.

Or we can just admit that we’re lousy parents.

Here’s to trying to be a better parent.