Before I was Mom I could drink any alcoholic beverage, stay up all night long and sleep all day. Before I was Mom, I loved to go out dancing and partying all night. Before I was Mom I loved to randomly invite strangers back to my apartment for an “after party”  fun game of cards and maybe even some home cooking. I had fun, I had a blast, but that was BEFORE I BECAME MOM.

It is so funny how I went from party queen woman to responsible Mom person. I drive through my town daily and see all these young girls and boys that are pushing a stroller, smoking a cigarette and dressed half naked and I think, “really, are you a Mom or a kid? And where is your parents?” I can not imagine raising my children as a child myself, but I also could not imagine showing my children such a lifestyle of walking the streets daily and hanging with the “bridge people” as we used to call them in our high school years.

I get sad when I see these babies do not even have a chance, they will grow up thinking walking the streets, doing drugs and getting drunk is the ONLY way of life. This makes me so sad, because it is no one else’s fault but the parents and the parents of these young mothers and fathers. The young mothers and fathers are not always teenagers, they are adults, at age 18 they think they know it all and rule the world. They can raise these children, but the sad fact is, these young parents are simply raising their babies the same way their parents did, which creates a cruel cycle of lost children and adults that do not know any better than to get drunk or do drugs and follow in the foot steps of their parents. Often times these babies of these families grow up to be uneducated high school drop outs, or worse, drug dealers. {I am not saying a drop out can not make something of themselves – because I know many who have – but these particular families have no such interest in doing more than walk the streets day in and day out}

When I became a mother I made a personal, internal decision. I asked myself, “what kind of mom will you be?”. My first instinct was to say ” I wont’ be like my parents” Isn’t that what we all say? But as I thought harder, I realized my actual answer to this question was, ” I will be the Best Mom I can be. I will do all I can to create a individual who can think for themselves, make mistakes & learn from them, and grow up to be a bright individual person”. I wanted to be the best Mom I could be, I wanted to take some of the great parts of my parents and combine them with my great parts to create a new version of my parents. A version unlike anyone else, because that is ME, I am a person, I am not my Mom, and I am not my Dad. I am Brandy, mother of three, positive thinker and creative writer.

I will not say it was easy for me to give up the partying, because even today after three children I miss those partying days and I long for a nice night out to get drunk and have a little adult fun. Being a parent is not always easy, it requires you to think about your children before you act. You need to ensure all that you are doing is something you want your children to see.

This is a subject I am very passionate about, teaching your children through your actions and I will be writing about this during the remainder of the week and through the weekend, citing references from areas of my life where I changed and inviting you to comment on areas of your life you changed when you became a parent. I am even going to try to get my hubs to write some on his blog, Daddy Knows All, so that you can get a well rounded Mom and Dad’s perspective on how life changed when we became parents.

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