I’ve been reworking my book that will be published by Doubleday in January 2009. It’s currently titled “The Power of No,” but that might change. In any event, the essential idea is that strategic No’s safeguard the great Yes’s of life in personal life, work, and relationships. No leads to Yes and thus health, integrity, and true success.
The chapter I’m polishing right is on Parents Who No. Here’s a conviction from that section.
The importance of No relates to a general conviction about parenting: it’s about working yourself out of a job—you’re actually not “raising kids,” but “raising adults.” You want to remember what they will become. I want my children to become honest, faithful, generous, loving, and honest. I want them to feel blessed by me and Laura. As we take in the Yes of what we seek our children to become when they’re mature, we can say No to wanting immature children forever. Put simply, we are called to create children that don’t depend on us for the rest of our lives.
Is that something worth No’ing?
1 comment:
as a friend of mine said, parents should have kids because they want to be in the business of "people-making"...and you sure as heck need to teach them 'no' :)
matt
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