The importance of parenting even when you aren't a parent.

What I've discovered over spring break, is the tremendous influence that everything that surrounds us has upon every aspect of our lives. Amazing what some time off studying can do huh? Self-enlightenment is wonderful. Parenting for example, is a way to really screw up a kid for the rest of their lives. Abuse in all forms, neglect, too much praise, not enough praise, too much discipline, not enough discipline - parenting in general establishes the "core beliefs" with which kids (or rather I should just say PEOPLE) view the world and themselves. Such "core beliefs" are so "core" that we see them not as beliefs nor as something that was learned, but as a truth or a reality. These are the beliefs from where we get our "attitude" or "outlook on life" and the scary part is: it all starts with those influences of parenting.

If one were to think "life is a struggle" or "I'm powerless" such a person would find themselves impeded when it comes to difficulties in life because they feel like they are incapable by nature. We talk ourselves in to much of our anxiety by self-criticism, what-if thinking, or even perfectionist thinking and all this "self-talk" begins with our basic core beliefs of how we see ourselves and life.

Parenting, thus, becomes a heavy responsibility that I don't know if I'd ever be able to take on given what I've seen. But what I've realized is all of us are influences because of our interactions with our environment and those that are in it with us; we influence and in turn are influenced. In a way, we are parenting them and vice-versa. Society parents its people, whether it be a controlling authoritative government that strips its citizens of their freedoms and makes them believe they are incapable without a leader, or perhaps a liberal democracy that empowers the man and encourages each individual's freedom of choice.

I keep thinking back to Blue Scholar's lyrics, "eyes up to the sky she sighs 'i need nobody. true indeed sister, but you still need everybody because we hardly know ourselves if we know nobody else." For the longest time I didn't really agree, with some unfamiliarity with ourselves without other people is in a way the explanation of us as a product of all those influences even though we have the CONTROL (which is important) ultimately of how we react to such influences. We only grow, discover, and develop ourselves by reacting to the influences of life (the environment) - by society, by parents, and by people around us.

We've been parenting our whole lives. In a sense we've always been responsible for everyone around us and thus, in turn responsible and in control of ourselves.

With that, my last a thought: Without negative "core beliefs" impeding you, or in other words, if you knew you could not fail, what would you strive for?