From day one of parenting, I always saw my son as a soul, not as a subject. I didn’t see you as someone to be submissive for submissive sake. Because of my authority, my position, or whatever. I saw you as a person first. I saw you.
And I think my sons see that. I think they get that. My biggest things with them: I’ll never lie to you, I’ll never put you in harm’s way, and I’ll do my best to prepare you for what’s coming. Other than that, I’m getting out of the way because you got to grow up. But in doing that, I want them to see their dignity and value first in the home.
And then, when they leave home operating so much in that, my hope is that they will operate like that outside of the home. And so, preparing them for the way, I put them in situations and scenarios where they have to exercise that gift.
I don’t just sit at home and go, hey, you got to watch out for this. You got to watch out for that. It’s more of a, “I can inform you, but I also want to see you be put in scenarios where we can dialog later.”
And so I do give him opportunities to go sit in at the label or at the doctor’s office or at my friend’s business and have interaction with people who don’t look like him but are very much so people he’s going to be around at some point in his life. How are you going to gauge that? What are you going to say? And he’s made way more connections just being himself. And then I get to steer that instead of squashing it.