A lot of parents are very short sighted when they raise their children.  The focus is one the temporary things while they ignore the permanent issues that are not addressed.  I am not sure how to demonstrate this in a concrete way without offending anyone.

Toys, clothes, etc those are temporal things that will be destroyed and inconsequential.  Manners, intelligence, maturity, appropriateness, godliness, those are the lasting things to focus on. Those will last a lifetime whether good or bad.   Those lasting things can affect the true happiness of a person’s life and the success of that person both spiritually, emotionally… Then the longer look, these characteristics (whether developed correctly or not) will be amplified with further generations.  The parents set the pace for future generations.

I am not sure why those things were so much in the forefront of my parenting.  Maybe because I felt so alone in the responsibility of my kids. Maybe I took the stewardship of them so seriously. Maybe the lack of funds changed my focus from things to character.   I did not do a perfect job with my children, but I worked very hard to focus on the longer-term concepts of my children’s’ lives.  I use a lot of wisdom and prayer.

I wish more parents would realize this larger, longer sighted responsibility of the development of a person’s character and less focus on the shorter, less permanent things like toys, activities, clothes, etc.