Hard Love, something most parents avoid.

Note: this picture has absolutely nothing to do with this post. It was our granddaughter Izzy wanting a picture of her with grandma's hat.

Hard love, the subject most parents avoid at a cost. We love our children and will help them by picking up the pieces when they screw up or head down the wrong path.  BUT! We do them a disservice by doing this over and over again. Sometimes it is necessary to finally remove the tit and let them stand in the shit they created. My wife had to do this to our youngest daughter. Our daughter didn't talk to us for almost three years after she did but that event was a wake up call for our daughter. She got her life together, went to college and graduated all the while she married, worked a full time job. Now her life is on the right track and she has never thanked my wife for doing this, but we know she is grateful and leads a good life with two children and a loving husband. This was a hard love success story.

Now for a hard love unsuccessful story. my son lived with me and my second wife for seven years and seemed like a good child headed on the right path in life until his later teen years when he like all teenagers started to go down their own path but led by peers, he changed. Soon, friends became more important than family, sound familiar? Anyway, he stole from his sister, he had never stole or lied before, now he told everyone that he didn't know what happened to it. His sister later found his friend with it as they were running around town, ditching school. When he was caught in the act and I confronted him, he said 'friends are more important than family' I got pissed and sent him back to my ex-wife to live. Even though we had been very close, he was angry with me but I thought sending him back would teach him the importance of family, boy was I wrong. He ran away, stole more things and ended back up at my doorstep after the police dropped him off. His mother came and got him, but how was I to know she lived in a world filled with drugs that he would soon become involved in. He has spent many years in prison, been shot, and never spoke to me for almost fifteen years.  I hope that he has learned his lesson and will join society again with goals in mind that will take him down the road to a healthy, happy life. He has two children by two different women, hopefully this will help him to change since he became a father himself.

In each of these cases, hard love was used not because we didn't love them any less than before but to try to wake them up to the life they need to have and should have. Hard love works sometimes and can be a wake up call to those drifting through life just taking what they can depending on others to carry them along. 

Talk back, I'm listening as always! Have a great day.