I want a better world for our children, I suppose we all do, the problem is we all see a different way of doing that. For some people that means pushing their kids to work hard so that they will be successful in life, to others it means giving them a planet that hasn’t been destroyed.

We all have our own dreams of the future we want to give our child. I hear many parents voice their dreams for their children and often I realize how much we differ in our beliefs. Some people tell me that their children will go to church as long as they live under their roof. They insist that their child will share their values.

While I’m fine with that in general, what I really want for my kids is to have both spirituality and discernment. For me convincing them to follow this leader or that is far less important that teaching them to think for themselves. I don’t want them to believe anything that anyone tells them without questioning it, not even if it is me who is telling them.

Some people talk about wanting success for their children, for them to become doctors and lawyers and again that is great. When I think of success I don’t think of money or things, I think of successful relationships and a lot of love in their life. If they find that love in a two room shack or find it in a mansion on the hill its all the same to me. What I want for them is much more than silver or gold, a big house or fancy car. Infinitely more.

I want them to grow up to find happy marriages, a partner and a friend. I want them to raise emotionally healthy children. To live lives surrounded by love and positive emotions. If they have money that’s great, being broke isn’t a hardship I wish on them by any means but I don’t want them to buy their way through life, I want them to live it.

My kids are growing up. I really can’t stop that. It seems like such a far away event just a few years ago but now it is right here in my face. I hear parents say they can’t wait for their kids to leave home, and my heart stops each time they say it. I’m not ready for my kids to leave home even though one already has for the most part.

I feel like I have so much more to teach them, so many lessons they still need to learn. I want to protect them, to warn them about every bad thing that might come their way. I want to teach them how to handle situations on their own for the day that I am not there to help them. I want to protect them, I want to nurture them, I want to give them enough love to last for the rest of their lives just in case they ever need it.

I hear people fussing about their child's grades and I have to admit that grades aren’t very important to me. When my children could do better I tell them, but grades are no proper indication of who a child really is or what they are capable of. They don’t tell me how respectful my child is being of others and they don’t tell me if my child is respecting themselves. They might tell me if my child is learning, but they don’t tell me if they are growing.

When my son holds a door open for an elderly woman at the grocery store or my daughter offers to help out a neighbor that’s where the real grades in life come in. That is where I get my report card. Did my child push another child off of a swing, or did they give their swing to another child because the others were full? Have they stopped the cycle of bullying?

I watch my kids almost constantly, looking for those signs. When my youngest cops a diva attitude, or my middle falls into the doldrums, when my oldest is angry with a friend. I watch them and their reactions, and I ask myself if they are really learning the lessons I am teaching.

I think about parenting a lot. I think about what I am doing and why. I ask myself if I am teaching them healthy patterns or unhealthy. Being a perfect parent has never been my goal, but raising happy well-adjusted kids has.

Trying to undo the events of my own childhood proved to be impossible. What is, will always be. I’ve seen a lot of pain in my life, and I want better for my children. Most of us do...

Sometimes we get wrapped up in the day to day events. The siblings constant fighting, the battle over homework. We stress over chores and curfews. We are raised up with pride, and sometimes embarrassed to no end, sometimes in the very same day. We get lost in the moment raising our children and we forget that the big picture is out there.

We are worrying about what kind of child we have and forget to worry about what kind of adult they will ultimately become. We forget that we are the source of their self-esteem and sometimes say things we shouldn’t, things they will carry around with them later in life.

We forget that they are little vessels of clay and that nobody will have the same effect on shaping them that we will have.

We get tired sometimes and we forget a lot of things...

I want my kids to make this world a better place, even in a small way, and I want them to be happy. No matter what is going on right here and right now this is my ultimate goal. Not to raise compliant children but to raise healthy adults.

What do you want for your children?

I am now a victims advocate, which is a tremendous feeling to say the least. There wasn’t one topic we covered that I couldn’t relate to at least a little bit.

I didn’t really expect to learn all the much new information in my class because I’ve researched these topics on my own for years. Trying to find a way to help others, to help myself.

I knew the statistics, I knew the effects of trauma on a survivor, I knew the different coping mechanisms. None of that was news to me.

What I didn’t realize were how many people have committed themselves to helping these victims.

I didn’t realize how truly blessed we are to live in a small community. In the city a victim gets lost in the system. Here they get to remain a person.

I didn’t realize that our victims advocates put their lives on the line every time they support a victim in court.

My advocate was my lifeline over the last 8 years, I adore her, but I never really thought about the danger she put herself in just to be there to support me.

I didn’t realize that there was a difference between helping someone and rescuing them. That when we rescue, we are just taking more power away from the victim.

I didn’t realize how important it was for me to hear the words “I believe you.” How those simple words changed my life. How saying them can change someone else's life.

I’ve spent my whole life feeling like a statistic. I was repeatedly molested as a child, raped as an adult, I’ve been through abuse both physical and emotional.

There wasn’t one topic we covered I didn’t understand first hand. I know courts, and protection orders, and revictimization by the system.

I spent my life as a victim, then this last few years I struggled to become a survivor.

Last night, I went from survivor to thriver. Second to becoming a parent, becoming an advocate is one of the best things I have ever done with my life.

Out of all we learned, one thing stands out most. When the woman who does art therapy with children came to speak with us she explained that through art these children learn to see themselves in a new light.

They go from being victims to artists, and that small change changes their whole perspective on life. I realized I’ve spent three years in therapy for that same reason.

It wasn’t the counseling that worked, it was the simple process of redefining myself.

I am a wife.
I am a mother.
I am a daughter.
I am a granddaughter.
I am a family member.
I am a friend.
I am a counselor.
I am a leader.
I am an artist.
I am a writer.
I am a thinker.
I am a helper.

I am an advocate.

I am many things in this life, but a victim is no longer one of those things. Now I get to help others find those things within themselves.

I am proud of the decisions I have made in my life. I am proud of the person I have become. I am proud to be part of the solution, however small that part is.

My baby girl is turning fifteen today. What an incredible feeling, it’s one part pride and one part scared to death. I keep trying to prepare myself for what comes next, but it’s all so overwhelming.

When you look into the eyes of your newborn child you never really comprehend that there will be a day you will be looking into those eyes and see an adult looking back at you. A painfully short fifteen years later you see that adult peering back to you and part of you wants to beg them to go back to being little.

That future is now three years away. It’s not possible, but it is. On one side of the line I have this beautiful child, on the other an adult will appear. Dating, and driving, and college are heading at me full speed and it’s all flashing in front of my eyes.

Now more than ever, I pray that I don’t screw this up, that I have accomplished my goal. There is this huge overpowering thought that you are responsible for another human life. I am supposed to be giving them all of the tools they will need to live life as an adult, and it scares me.

Some parents focus on discipline, they run a tight ship. I realized early on that that wasn’t going to work for me. Discipline is important for a young child, but what I wanted to give them more than anything was love. Not just my love here and now, but a love for themselves and others that would carry them through their lives.

When I realized I only had 18 years to accomplish this goal, and that it was supposed to last them another 40, 60, maybe even 80 years I realized just how important my job really was. I am not raising children, I am raising adults and I only have 18 years to do it in.

The first half of their young lives I struggled to give them roots, now I’m struggling to give them wings. Encouraging them to be what they want to be, not what the world expects them to be. Trying to help them figure out what makes them happy, not allowing them to live for me or anyone else.

They have such small voices, but I want those voices to be heard. I want to be the first person to listen to them, I want to be the person they can come to not as a parent but as someone they trust. That means having difficult conversations about alcohol, drugs, sex, friends, and peer pressure, not once but every single day.

If my kids come to me with a serious problem and I over react, that damages their trust in me. Trust is the foundation of every relationship. If I lose the trust of my children, I will lose my children. They will find others to replace the relationship they crave with me, to accept them like I should have.

I want to protect them and make the right decisions for them, I have to separate myself from my own instincts and allow them to make mistakes. The worst thing I could ever do for my children is deprive them of the consequences of their own actions.

I have to step back and allow them to grow and learn, and that means watching them fall on their face sometimes. It means not rushing in to rescue them, but standing there with my life preserver and waiting to see if they can figure it out.

I still remember the exact date I formulated most of these goals. April 20, 1999. I watched the news horrified, along with the rest of the nation. I was holding my young son in my arms, awaiting the birth of my youngest. They showed photographs of the two young boys responsible for the carnage that day, and I looked into my own sons eyes.

Their parents never saw this, not even in their worst nightmares. People kept asking how could the parents not have known. I kept thinking how could they have known? I made up my mind that day that I would not screw these three kids up. I would devote my life to making sure they give to the world, not take away from it.

I think about a lot of things. Sometimes I think too much. These thoughts are with me today as my daughter celebrates her birthday halfway around the world. I’m supposed to be there and I’m not. She has the most awesome step-mom in the world, and a father who loves her with all his heart.

She is loved there, she is loved here, and many places in between. Today she turns fifteen. Tomorrow she will be eighteen. The day after that could be college, and the day after that maybe she will become a mother herself. As frightening as that is, she will always be my baby.