The best thing any
parent can do for their
child is consider the
world from the
child’s perspective, while remembering to maintain their own sense of self.
If they are small, get down on the floor and check out what they see. Read them at least five hundred books. Kiss their bread dough cheeks, make noises, goofy dances and silly stuff out of paper. Let them dig their toes in the mud. Let them go out in the rain. Allow them to get mad.
If they are teenagers, remember what life was like for you at that age, remember how frustrating it was sometimes when older people pretended you were just a punk with no clue about the world. When adults pretended they were entitled to belittle your every aspiration because they had a few years on you, coupled with some crushing financial problems and a deep need to pass along the gripes of their own parents and bosses.
Ask your kids what they think, and listen without correcting their opinions. If they say something scary remember that they are trying on perspectives like different hats. Allow them to be different than you.
Ask yourself how YOU would have wanted to be treated when you went to your Mom and said you were going to move to Hollywood, or that you accidentally spilled Kool-Aid on the new rug. Now keep a straight face, level head and unshrill voice when you tell them what you feel about that from your new perspective.
Respect them as people, not “potential adults”. Allow them make mistakes. Listen when they come to you and tell you they screwed up. Don't fix it for them.
Tell them you are sorry when you know you have fucked up (and you will, it's best to just admit it.)
Teach them how to find information, starting from a topic they are interested in. Admit it when you do not know the answer and go with them to find it.
Teach them to feel the difference between right and wrong so that they can spot it even when you can't be there to point it out for them.
Be true to your own self. Martyrdom will not make your family life any better. If you want to do something with your life, find a way. Don't blame it on the kids if you put your dreams in a little box in the closet. None of that "I could have been a famous artist if not for you meddling kids!" bullshit. You will have great moments of unease, just go with it and get on with it. If you fuck up it is not their fault. If you never do anything other than parent your kids, that's just fine. That's enough. But if you have some big dream of bungee jumping off every cliff, or taking a go cart across the country, or writing a 20,000 line poem about the funk you found in the bathroom drain, just do it. If you do not, your mediocrity or subsequent alcoholism is not the fault of anyone but yourself.