Disrespecting My Parents - DWC Day 19

I'm not sure how I could disrespect my parents here without expressing a great deal of disrespect for myself. I think that my parents tried to do the best that they could with my brother and me. They taught me to think for myself. They didn't have much growing up and had working parent's guilt, so they showered me with things. They encouraged us to read and the content wasn't usually censored, as long as we would read it, they would buy it. They took us on family vacations that always included a museum. Mistakes or misbehavior meant a long discussion, not a beating or punishment. They were kind, intelligent, and generous.

If the request here is to pick out where they failed, I suppose there are a few ways... They should have taught me the value of a dollar better. If I had known that one has to work for everything in life I might not have struggled so much when I left home. They should have argued in front of me so that I would know how to disagree with someone that I care about without destroying the relationship in the process. They should have taught me that daily routines help us complete menial tasks that have to be finished for day to day and long term functionality. They should have taught me that family comes before anything. They should have made me turn off the Atari or the TV and get some exercise or at least a hobby. They should have encouraged me to be more involved with friends and public activities so that I wouldn't have been such a hermit.

I know from my own experience as a parent and from parenting classes that I have taken that unless one goes out of their way to learn a new way of parenting that everyone parents the same way that the previous generation did. Therefore, if no one in your family has every tried to educate themselves in a better way of parenting, then they are probably parenting the same way your caveman ancestors did. I know that my parents were college educated people that took classes about child psychology and child development. I know that they tried to do the best that they could. But all parents make mistakes.