It astounds me how there are many couples who seriously believe that you can ignore their marital vows and still rear a moral, responsible generation. Since you can only teach what you know, when you try to teach the next generation to have responsibility, it must begin at home, in your marriage. When you ignore responsibility in that key area, trying to teach responsibility in other areas is vanity and insane. It is pure insanity to show irresponsibility in your actions, yet expect your children to magically develop responsibility. You may mean well in terms of wanting them to be financially responsible or responsible for the environment, yet when your actions are irresponsible, your message loses all meaning.
Not only will your message be meaningless, you may even consider resorting to using force or coercion to convey responsibility. Resorting to the use of force or coercion may bring some initial desirable results in behavior, yet the motivation was not based on responsibility. Under such conditions, you have degraded them to forced servility, not ‘responsibility’.
Insanity and insane thinking can be induced through the use of mixed messages, such as telling your child “you must be a responsible adult”, even though you are hiding your affair and your own irresponsibility acts from them. You failed to fulfill your responsibilities to their parent, yet in your mind they ‘damned’ better obey you and be responsible. In such cases, you are creating a crazy making situation. Do not be surprised if they act out or resent you, since something has to give. Leading such a double life will catch up with you.
Rather than treat the symptoms of irresponsible behavior with medications or punishment, you need to be doing something about the root of the problem. You need to stop your insane behavior of expecting them to be responsible when they see your flagrant irresponsibility. Having an affair is not a small matter. When you are irresponsible in car maintenance or lawn care, it can be overlooked. When you fail to honor your promises to your spouse, the parent of your child, it is a major issue that your child can see. It teaches them that promises are something you say but don’t mean, that you get away with everything that you can, you say what you need to in order to avoid responsibility. Responsibility becomes merely knowing the right words to say in order to get out of a bind.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
