29 Keys to Parenting and Win!: Helping Your Children to . . . Stay Out of Trouble . . . Excel in School . . . and Become Amazing Adults!!

I always knew I wanted to be a parent, but I was uncertain of whether I would be any good at it. It was not an overwhelming fear, but it was most certainly a concern.

My own childhood was riddled with much dysfunctionality: generous helpings of abandonment, lack of validation, and rejection with one transition after the next. Stability and normalcy were a distant dream, and surviving was the driving force. Blessed with smarts, great people skills, and athletic abilities, I was able to overcompensate for these obvious failings and succeed.

My relationship with God was by far the only part of my life that was true and sure. When you have not been parented in a healthy way, only encountering snippets of knowledge from various adults who popped in and out of your life as parents, it became very clear that I had no idea about the quality of parenting I would adopt in my own life. Should I be blessed to be a mother? Would I be better than what was modeled before me? Or would I be worse?