When you have children you also have many responsibilities. You need to take care of the child, provide for the child. You also can generally point that child in certain directions in their lifes. You start off picking their food and clothing, where they live, what they watch on TV. You influence who they root for, what activites to participate in. You decide where they go to school. You decide their religion, or even if they will have any religious background. You try and provide a good moral compass. You answer questions, and if you are smart you ask questions as well. And you try to advise them on all the many questions of life.
And you probably will fail. Somewhere along the way you will give bad or wrong advise. Your child will make poor decisions. Your child may rebel against you, sometimes for reasons neither you nor they fully understand. You may have some difficult times of your own, and your child may "get away from you". Or there may be some "bad influences", or the "wrong crowd". Unfortunately, some of us will fail worse than others. For those of us lucky enough to fail the least, we run into another problem.
Children grow up. They stop needing decisions made for them, they make them on their own. And though advice can still be given, they are going to do what they want to do. You can't stop them, and I wouldn't want to. I suppose growing up is making your own mistakes and learning from them. And that is the difficult part. You'd like to say something, to give some advise, to give the benefit of experience. But I guess some things are best learned through one's own experiences rather than through those of others.
So from here on out I'm keeping my opinions to myself. I will no longer say"If I were you...". I will still ask questions, and they may be leading questions, but I will only ask them to get some thought, not to sway. If asked, I will gladly share any experiences I have, and will also give any advise. If asked. Otherwise, I'll keep it to myself....
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