Faith

So I obviously have nothing better to do than write in my blog. I actually would be getting ready for bed but because of my (slight) OCD I have to take a shower before bed and when I turned on the water in the shower it was only warm. So now I have to run the dishwasher so that some of the water goes out of the hot water heater and new water comes in and gets really hot for the shower later. I think this process may take up to an hour, but WH doesn't get home from class for at least an hour and a half so it should work out well.
You should also know that I have a deep and abiding love for hotel showers because they never run out of hot water!

What I was thinking about as I was going through this process of turning on the shower and then loading the dishwasher was that no one in my life ever told me anything about actual life. Or perhaps I wasn't listening. I don't really know.
I mean really, my parents divorced so I didn't ever see a good marriage, except maybe my grandparents, but I'm not even sure about that. And after my Dad got remarried I still didn't see it because I was too busy disliking my stepmother (who now is a wonderful grandmother to my son). In all fairness she didn't like me either I don't think.

I don't recall having learned anything about money, or managing money.

I apparently don't know much about the history of our nation.

The bottom line I guess of all of this (although I know it's hard to decipher from the rambling) is how do two people who never had a role model from the same-sex parent figure out how to do the marriage and parenting thing? I think we are doing well with the marriage part but my concern is more for the parenting part.

The truth is I feel like I have no idea how to be a role model for a little girl. The only experience I have with a "normal" mother-daughter relationship is what I saw from my college roommates and their mothers. I was always a little jealous because their moms would take them shopping and send back homemade frozen dinners with them when they went to visit. Don't get me wrong, my mom tried sometimes but we never did anything that I would consider "normal" mother-daughter bonding.

I know WH's dad wasn't around when he was growing up and pretty much all of the time they spent together since he was 16 was in a bar.

I guess we just practice parenting on our kids and hope they aren't messed up?

The scary thing is I know plenty of parents who seem to be normal and reasonable and their kids ended up alcoholic, or non-Christians who are more interested in the latest i-phone than anything else and some that are so self absorbed that they can't have a healthy relationship (friendship included).

I know that raising a child in a Christian household with parents who love each other can do wonders. I also feel like there must be some other factor involved too. Teaching the child to choose for themselves the right thing? I want to know how to teach a child to question things and still have faith. WH and I both managed the questioning phase (it took a few years--I think mostly between ages 18-22). But I know some people (only a few now that I'm 27) that have never questioned their faith. Which I think is an important part of the process because if you don't question it then you're just doing what someone told you and I don't think that is authentic faith at all. And I also know a few who just let go of it without even trying to question it.

Not sure where I'm going with this. I guess these questions should be posed to an experienced parent or pastor. I'm not sure that even then I would have the answers I am looking for.

Like WH always says, "A hot shower will make you feel better."
He knows me so well.