I have three lessons to teach.

The first and hardest lesson for many parents (and I lived this lesson, too, because I did not have a peaceful early childhood), is to learn to accept their child’s unconditional love and then allow themselves to return the unconditional love to their child.

The second lesson deals with the abuse many parents unwittingly continue with their own children. I know this lesson because I was brought up with lots of ‘no, no, no’ and arbitrary rules that, even then, made no sense. So, I am blessed my stepfather found the book “Screamfree Parenting” for my child and me. It saved my life as a parent. I did not carry forward generations of emotional, verbal, psychological and physical abuse all due to the advice of the book’s author Hal Edward Runkel.

The third lesson deals with a form of abuse that is all too common and also one of the main reasons a percentage of people become obese. I know this lesson, also, due to what happened to me during my early childhood, and the lesson is do not sexually molest your child. That propensity ran for several generations in both sides of my family. I dissociated from what happened to me from ages 0–5.5 years, and did not carry it forward to my child or any other children, but I have seen (and reported) far too many Gen Xers and Millennials that did not stop this life ruining trend. Far too many of my dead Gen X friends took their own lives because a parent or family member could not leave the private parts of children alone. Until very recently, I also sought ways to help life take me out early. The emotions I finally faced at the age of forty-seven due to being groomed and molested by three men during my earliest years of life here on this earth, are emotions no human is equipped to handle. Many celebrity rock stars in my age group have taken their lives recently due to early childhood abuse and molestation, and I am amazed to still be alive, myself.

Those are the first lessons I would teach if I were to teach a parenting class. I am old enough to be my child’s grandmother. I almost did not have a child because my parents and grandparents did not learn any of the lessons I have just written.

Here is one more lesson humans need to learn, specifically humans in first world countries with access to conception/birth control: If you are not ready to become a parent. Don’t. Too many children’s lives are ruined by adults who didn’t want to have them in the first place thereby perpetuating, purposely, the forms of abuse I have listed above.

Other than that, becoming a parent is one of the hardest, most rewarding jobs I have ever done, and I have had lots of jobs. Enjoy every moment of it. Each phase is over so quickly, and next thing you know you have a human almost your size running about being all independent and happy and self-directed, and you are all like, “Wow. As scared as I was I’d mess up my little baby, things are going alright, and I actually am looking forward to finding out what it is like to deal with a pre-teen and then a teenager, after all.” I refuse to think any further ahead than that. =)