Pour Your Heart Out - The mom I want to be

Once again - If you are here for ICLW, my story is here.

Secondly - Glad everyone got a kick out of yesterday's post, the general consensus seemed to be that I need a wife. Nice thought and I'm sure Joey would love it but such an awkward thing to have to explain to Jellybean. I'll keep working on the hubby instead, I guess!

Oh and a quick shout out to Alexis for being my 100th follower - yay! How exciting for me!

Shell over at Things I Can't Say hosts - Pour Your Heart Out. It is a place to just get whatever is weighing on your heart out. Please be kind to all of the posters.

I think one of the main things that pregnancy does is it really makes you ponder what type of parent you would like to be. One of the benefits of going through this at 27 is my perspective is different then it would have been even 5 years ago - when I was no doubt no where near ready to parent a child. I am also lucky enough to have great examples of the right way to do it thanks to my amazing parents.

One of the main things that my parents made sure of when raising us was that we were independent - in our thinking, our actions and as people. They didn't raise needy children who couldn't stand on their own and weren't capable of taking care of themselves. My sister and I like to say we are independent to a fault now. We would have to be buried in quicksand up to our noses before we would shout for help. That though is what has equipped us to be successful in life. I'm 27 - a college graduate, happily married, home owner, 2 cars, pets and the strongest family bonds you will ever come across. If Jellybean can say the same when he is 27 - than I have done my job well.

So my goals as a parent are first and foremost to raise my child with freedom. I want him to not only have the freedom to succeed but also the freedom to fail. I won't ever be the type of parent to do his homework for him or solve his problems for him. By understanding failure and overcoming it he will be more resilient and appreciate his successes that much more. You can not be a successful adult having never been disappointed or worked your own way out of a difficult situation. My job as a parent will be to equip Jellybean with the skills to be able to do it himself.

I also want Jellybean to be a hard worker and to appreciate the value of money. I began babysitting at 11 years old and have worked ever since. I understood how much my gymnastics cost my parents and the sacrifices they had to make because of it. That means I also knew not to ask for extras - I earned those myself. In college I was attending school full time, working full time and still managed to pull off straight A's - without that work ethic my parents had instilled in me that never would have happened. So Jellybean will work - chores, helping dad, babysitting and at 16 paying for his car insurance. I can't expect a child to be able to take care of himself if he doesn't know how to work.

I will not be overprotective. The world is without a doubt a scary place. Guess what so is TV, the internet and your own mind. I am going to have faith in the fact that I am raising my child with the morals and values that we respect and hope that in turn he make decisions that we agree with. That means he will choose his own friends and take on new opportunities whether they be sports, summer camps or traveling abroad. This will be my child's life to lead. Not my own. I can not hold him back from living his life for the fear of the what if. That's not fair to either one of us.

My hope is that if I do all this at 18 Jellybean will no longer need us. Not that I will be kicking him out the door and throwing a party at the thought. He is precious to us now and will be even more so then. I just want to know that when I drop him off at college one day that he can spread his wings and fly without looking back.