I'm gonna be an awesome parent. I know I'm tooting my own horn here, and the first response from everyone who actually has kids is something along the lines of "Just you wait..." or , "You want mine then?" You are all despicable! I'm going to be a great parent!

How do I know? Well, for starters they're on purpose. Now this is NOT to say that accident children can't have good parents, what I'm saying is that most of the people running around on the planet do things totally capriciously and with absolutely no fore thought. They live completely on accident, and then they wonder why they wind up old, overweight and bitter. My life has not been accidental for a very long time. My marriage was not a marriage build just on a passionate desire to have a hot chick. My marriage was thought out, planned, pursued with the single-mindedness of one running an Olympic sprint, and I still pursue it with that same determination. I can proudly say that I love my wife more than the day I married her, and we grow closer with each day we spend together.

There are principals I have been striving to model for my child from before I asked his mother to marry me. There are further principals we have developed together that we want to raise up in him, and for all the nay-sayers who will tell me "It'll start that way but you will get tired" You are thinking of when you try to instill principals in your child that you don't believe in. I am of the opinion that if the principals are worth instilling in my child they had better be big enough and robust enough to stand up in "real world" adult life. These principals challenge me on a daily basis, and my struggles to live them instill character in my life. Unless you are willing to live the principals you're trying to beat into your children, you will fail. This is because the degree your life matches your rules will give you the degree your child can respect you as a person. This is respect garnered completely separate from your position to them or even your relationship with them, this is respect that is completely for the person you are and live as, this is what will make the difference when your child is struggling with obeying you and having fun with his friends.

Perhaps the biggest of all that makes me assert I will be an awesome parent is this: I will uphold my children's actual needs above their perceived needs. This means rather than working over time at a job to get them new fancy gym shoes so they can fit in with all the cool kids wearing Adidas, I'll buy them pay less, and be home with them, teaching them through my life how they are to treat women and others by the way I treat their mother and them.

I don't know how many single moms I've seen in communications and counselling classes who get to the part where your actions reveal your actual values, and they have a crisis that "Do I really value my child? I'm putting them in daycare so I go to class!" and they quickly justify it with "But I'm getting this degree to provide for them better!" And they are usually lying! Often they have a degree they pursue as a status symbol, usually to prove something to an abusive first husband. They've told themselves that the degree will get them a better job, something that anyone who has gotten a degree in the last five years can tell you, is nothing to be assured of, and meanwhile their child gets raised by strangers. If I were to be utterly and brutally honest, I'd say to put their child first they should find a good, godly man who is desperately passionate about God, and children, get in his way, get married, and raise their children with someone who can help them model a healthy life of principal and character while they raise them and he does whatever he can to put food on the table.

I know it's not popular, but honestly, what is better for their children? Saying "Mommy makes 5 thousand more annually than she did when I was born, hey can I go to your house, there's no one at my house for three more hours" or "I can't wait to go home to mommy and daddy, they love me so much!" This is the difference I want to make for my children. Be there, love them, and help them discover and grow into whatever God intended them to be. This is why I'm going to be an awesome parent.