A few months ago, I was appalled to realize how much I swore around my youngest niece and nephew. It’s been a bad habit of mine for years that I’ve never been able to stop. I decided the best way to clean up my act was to put the two of them in charge. 

 

To hold myself accountable I told them every time I swore I had to pay each of them a dollar. They thought it was funny but never held me to it.

 

Last weekend my niece and nephew stayed at our house while their parents went to a wedding. I decided it was a good time to at least cut down on the swearing so I took out two jars and told them every time I swore a dollar was going into each one.

 

This time they held me to it. It actually didn’t go as badly as I thought it would. They delightedly caught me at it six times, unfortunately for my husband, they also caught him at it another three. Guess we both need to work on the problem.

 

Ten dollars later I was actually watching what I was saying, but I was also wondering what kind of role model I’d been to my own kids. I’m sure I swore around them almost as much, but what other bad habits had I exposed them to?

 

Along with swearing in every day conversation, I have a problem with swearing at other drivers on the road and have a slightly heavy foot. We’re late to almost every single event we go to, and I drink a lot of pop and love candy. I know there’s a lot more, but I don’t want to think about it too hard. Parents already second-guess themselves, no need to find even more reasons to do so.

 

I may not be the best role model out there but I don’t think I’ve been too bad. Unlike many of their friends, we ate supper together as a family almost every single night. We didn’t eat much fast food and I usually made a balanced meal at supper. There’s always healthy snacks around. The kids all had responsibilities and daily chores. We didn’t watch much TV and recycled before it was trendy to do so.

 

I taught them not to bully and or discriminate. I taught them to care about the environment. I taught them to have confidence in themselves and be proud of who they were.

 

I believe one of the biggest things I’ve passed on to my kids is kindness, to people and to animals. When they were younger, all three of them thought I was a hero because I would stop the car no matter where we were to save turtles off the road and frogs off the windshield. When birds would hit the windows of our house we’d run outside to save them before the dogs went out, keeping them safe until they were able to fly away. We checked for tree frogs before shutting the windows.

 

Although he doesn’t like to admit it, my husband is the same way. When we first moved to our property Blayne would find baby kittens out in the field every year. We found them all homes. Numerous dogs have been lured off the highway and kept in our kennel until we found their owners. When we had our chickens, he made them a fancy, insulated coop and kept it heated all year round.

 

We didn’t eat the chickens. They were pets and each had a name. Our first was a rooster a neighbor gave to Brenna. We named him High King Clucky the Magnificent. 

 

One spring, a baby squirrel fell out of its nest and Blayne got a ladder and gently put it back. Another year he caught a goose that was hurt and kept it safe until it was strong enough to fly away. Cutting up dead trees in the woods one day he found a fawn hiding under a log and called us all out to look at it, warning the kids not to touch it.

 

We feed the birds and put corn out for the deer and pheasants. We’ve always had dogs and cats.

 

The one day I wondered if I’d gone too far, however, was when I looked out the window and saw the kids crouched down in the driveway after it had just stopped raining. I went outside to see what was going on. They were trying to save all the worms on the tar before the sun dried them up.

 

I may not be the best role model ever, but I don’t think I’ve been too bad. All three of my kids have grown up to be pretty good people that I’m proud of. I hope they’re also proud of me.