This article will be partly my confession as a son, assessment of my parents, flavoured with my added value. The goal is to create some kind of testament to whoever is a parent, or once plan to be one.

I want to stress out in the beginning, that I love both my parents. They both have their flaws and so do I. I will probably sound a bit too strict at some point during this text, but keep in mind that I do not judge them, rather I try to utilize all the knowledge that I have gained about them in order to make sense out of it all (things are not black or white and one should do a research before jumping to conclusion), therefore have necessary data to be better parent than them. And again, this motivation come from believe, that every “new parent” should have as one of the main goals to be better parent, than his parents, thus unlock the humanity’s potential to grow. 

Source

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Background

My knowledge gathering started roughly around the time when my parents divorced. I remember bits and pieces from before, but nothing to significant. I do not close my eyes to the fact that I have been formed by them since way earlier than I remember, but I don’t remember it, therefore it would be just speculations. That is not the aim of this text.

Before it even happened, I remember my parents trying to hide that fact from me. I might have been like 12 or so, but one should not underestimate young one’s evaluation of situations in family. When the time has come, the decision between parents has been made that I will go away with mom. I’m not really sure, but I have the feeling that if I had stronger connection to my father back then, I would probably stay with him, if I insisted to. That was not the case though. So I and my mom moved.

I will now depict the state were both my parents were 10 years ago to finalize the background image. 

Mom

Former professional handball player, leader of Czech national team. At that time working partly working as masseur, and partly still as a professional handball player playing only the matches in Germany’s 4th league with her former teammates. They were too old to play the real competitive shit so they rocked the lower leagues. They actually made it to 2nd league, but there it started to be really competitive again and mom decided to stop – I love this btw and hope that I will once have the opportunity to do the same! She was gaining some okish money and ran the household. 

Dad

Few years after the promotion into one of the higher ranks in a bank. He was gaining the majority of the money, therefore allowed our family to jump a bit higher in the community’s rank. He’s a really rational person who is trying to use logical argumentation in every aspect of life. 90% of the time he was either in the bank, or playing golf. By that time he has already given over to consumerism. 

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Stories of both sides

Both parents have told me their own point of view regarding this whole situation. I will retell them first and then I will start to evaluate the whole situation from my perspective. 

Mom

Ok so according to her what has happened was, that after acquiring good paying job, father started to change. He began fall for consume even more, started to hang out with unsympathetic people (bankers…) and was basically doing his own things most of the time. Because of that she started to realize that the money is changing her too. She realized how wrong it is and was suddenly unhappy, therefore decided to end it. 

Dad

His stance is that he has earned most of the money, bought all the stuff family needed, obeyed mom when she wanted this and that and then even listened to the idea to move out of Prague to their own house…and then she left. 

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My point of view

By know you should have a decent grasp of the situation I was in. From now on I’m going to present only my (hopefully objective) estimation. 

The growing

I have grown with my mom and that affected me greatly. Her nurturing technique was basically to let me evolve on my own. Since I was 15 I could have done basically anything I wanted to. I started my “pub career”, I started smoking weed. I never lied to mom, she knew everything. She always stated her opinion, but never forced it upon me. I was free to choose what I deemed right and what not. By that time I started creating my own values in life. My understanding of what is well-mannered is totally off the standards. I always say what I think to anyone – be it my parent, teacher, friend, or totally unknown person. I try to never lie. I know that I often times hurt people with authentic truths, but then again I believe that from a long-term view it’s always better to hurt someone with truth, rather than comfort him with a lie. Because of this attitude there are either people who truly hate me, or respect me for my values. Also when I was 17 I stopped drinking alcohol. I didn’t like the way it affects my thinking. Now I drink max 3 beers per evening spent in pub, which is basically nothing.

I have the feeling that I haven’t grown into the image my father has dreamed up. He respects me I’ll give him that, but at times of lower self-control it’s sometimes clear that he’s unhappy about the life values and believes I have. 

Evaluation of both stories from my today’s perspective

I had a lot of time to objectively evaluate both stories and 10 years later I think I have the answers. I totally understand mom. Money really change people and they have managed to do so even in my dad’s case. Also I don’t know many dad’s friends, but I remember that time during his next wedding, where his witness said that he will abdicate his son for heaving dreads. I was like…WHAT? I was 15 back then, but I was able to totally humiliate him just by stating what should be obvious to everyone (on my own blunt way). Everyone laughed and he never said single word to me ever since. But the point is that if THIS guys was my dad’s witness, then I have nothing to say really. I wouldn’t bother to join an interaction with such a person – never ever for any reason – and he calmly calls him his friend. On the other hand I understand that he had his time consuming hobbies. I’m the same and I could just sit on my ass all the time. 

At the same time I understand her for deciding to leave this kind of life. I couldn’t live with a woman who would be obsessively materialistic too. I think that they both have chosen different paths along the way of life that were incompatible. 

The dream

Source

In my recent Steemfest 2 post I have revealed a lot about myself + my life goals. Read that if you want to get to know me better.

I basically have at the moment 2 dreams. Of course I have smaller dreams too, but those are the biggest. 

1. Make my living with writing 
2. Play Ultimate Frisbee till I can (read till I’m not old or injured)

I’m a fulltime student, who invest all of his time into sport and writing. Since I’m playing a sport, that is non-professional I have to pay everything myself. Not only we invest as much time as we can to compete on European and Worlds level, but also the money we have to pay is non-negligible. When I’m not training, I’m writing. As you could imagine the system doesn’t really reward me for my efforts (until I’ve found Steemit! Long live Steemit!). The money is non-negligible for me since I have something over 100 Euro for the whole month, but it is negligible for someone who salary is way over the average.

I’m really modest and I don’t need almost anything. Yet at the same time I will work on accomplishing my dreams and standing somewhere for 8 hours to get almost no money at all is total waste of time. Not only time is money and I could use that 8 hours to start my brand here, or I could come up with another addition to the world I’m creating, or I could just run or muscle up to be ready for next training. From every single point of view standing somewhere for 8 hours to get 24 Euros is just fucking bullshit and lose-lose situation no matter what happens there.

Now in this modern age “working” means something else than it always used to. I could of course aim for short-term-no-profit-at-all that would enable me to…buy a tool or food. But life is not a short-term kind of thing if you don’t plan on dying when you reach 25 years. Now, when a parent reaches salary that places him into country’s top-class, considering to support his own genome should be a priority. I’m not saying that every single kid deserves huge amount of money and that even isn’t what I’m asking for. But when a kid has a dream and its working hard to reach it, and it would benefit greatly from just a little money injection, so it wouldn’t need to spend 8 hours doing nothing, but rather invest its time again into the dream, that to me seems like a very easy decision.

To be fair father is sending some money (like 350 Euros per month). This money though is nowhere close to cover the real expenses I have. I train (can’t even afford gym. I can afford sauna like once in 3 weeks, increasing the risk of the injury since I can’t regenerate properly etc.) a lot and I eat NON-STOP. We need to take care of our flat. All the little expenses – city transport, school trips, extra stuff I need to pay for Frisbee and what if I choose to go out and have a dinner in a restaurant? At least once a month you know. It all adds up, resulting in the money sent for me not covering what I would need. Father has invested into me earlier. He has been paying for a private school I was attending. I was way too young then and didn’t understand. Now I would know that it wasn’t worth it and if I received half of the money I would educate myself more over time anyway + I would have the money to follow the dreams.

Lately my father has lost over 114,242 Euro in stock-exchange. It’s his money and he’s free to do anything he wants with it. I’m also not the type of guy who asks for money. When I have, I give, that’s just how I live. When someone lives in the same way and chooses me as his target I wouldn’t refuse. What I’m trying to say is, that when you have some money, you could count with your kid more. Be interested in what are his dreams and goals and try to help him with them. All the money means anyway is less time for the kid to do what he doesn’t want to do in order to be able to do what he wants. Money has the power to bypass this useless stage of life. 

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Conclusion

Every little decision you as a parent and as a kid do not only greatly influence the rest of your life, but also that of your kids. One can either look at things like “I have created everything and I’m so very generous that I share even a tiny bit of it” or “We are team after all and since I created you (the kid), I might as well try to get to know what makes you happy and if I can, I will support you in accomplishing it”. This should be done not only in the case when the kid has grown into a person that shares life values and goals with you. Respect is a must.

I’m not saying that parent should invest into the kid no matter what. One has to critically evaluate the kid (that is hard I guess) and come to a decision whether it has the potential to put the money to good use. Whether it is worth it to invest into him. That is maybe where I have failed when I grew up:).

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As always I strongly encourage you to engage with me! I want to know what you think guys.  

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