First, I want to preface this by saying how much I love my family. I love my parents, and my sister and two brothers have a place in my heart that will never be lost. I was blessed with a phenomenally unique childhood, full of both more love and more pain than most kids in America experience. Both have strengthened me, and I am blessed.

I have recently realized that there is no ‘normal’ or ‘to be desired’ childhood. Instead, God gives every child a wildly different life for a purpose, and we are the ones who choose to make it our downfall or our platform. It is what we choose to do with our childhood as an adult that makes it ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

My dad loves his wife more than anything else. I admire him for how well he takes care of my mom, and that he gave me more hours in the first 10 years of my life than most girls get from their father in their entire life. I hope that my husband adores his daughters as much as my father adored me.

In every family, though, there are a few things that drive deep rifts – some are flashing neon signs, and some are entirely invisible.

In our family, sarcasm is one of these things.

Sarcasm is defined by Princeton as “witty language used to convey insults or scorn.” Another definition is, “a form of irony that attacks a person or belief through harsh and bitter remarks that often mean the opposite of what they say.”

Note the difference between sarcasm, and humor: “a message whose ingenuity or verbal skill or incongruity has the power to evoke laughter.”

I despise sarcasm. It bites, and it wears at a child’s spirit. The young men and women who have been on the receiving end of sarcasm have visible scars. I can see it. To me, sarcasm is like pulling a rug out from a toddlers feet and laughing as he falls.

Are you familiar with the term, ‘cognitive dissonance?’ It is a psychological term that describes the mental and emotional tension a person experiences when they simultaneously accept two contradictory truths or emotions. We don’t need scientists and psychologists to tell us that inconsistency is harmful to children, but they’ve proved it anyway.

Children by nature love to make their parents happy. They love to make them laugh. They love to be the focus of positive attention. Children thrive in their parents’ pleasure. But introduce physical or emotional pain at the same time, and it wrecks a child’s heart. Whether or not you as a parent think the pain is valid is entirely irrelevant. Pain is pain, and your child is hardwired a certain way by the God of the Universe, and it is your job to love that child through it.

I Corinthians 13:6 says, ‘love always protects.’ When you love someone, you will do your best to protect their heart. Always. The definition of protect does not include poking fun with the intention of manning up your son or daughter.

Ephesians 4:29 says, “do not let any unhealthy talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, so that it may benefit those who listen.” I am no counselor, pastor, or teacher – but in my opinion, the phrase ‘according to their needs’ is intensely overlooked. If your child is soft-hearted, sensitive, and acutely tuned to your words, know that is it a gift given to him by the same Being that made you. I don’t care if that doesn’t fit into your definition of masculinity. God designed him that way for a purpose you do not yet understand. And you have been directed to say nothing to that little one unless it laces his heart with love – according to his needs.

Dear men, it doesn’t matter how your father did or didn’t raise you. And dear women, you have special access to your son’s heart. Together, I beg you, build your son into a man by way of love, encouragement, confidence, pride, and validation.

Dear men, your daughter’s heart is softer than you know. Dear women, tell your daughters they are beautiful and valuable. We need to learn to accept approval from not just men. Together, I beg you, to build your daughter into a woman by way of love, encouragement, confidence, pride, and validation.

My heart breaks when my 19 year old brother winces in pain from my dad’s poorly chosen jokes, and I can feel an invisible coating of numbness slip over my heart when my dad laughs at my expense. There are terrible truths that my sister has accepted about herself, driven into her heart like knives and imprinted into her mind by sarcasm.

I tell you this to ask you to think twice about what you say – three times, if necessary. Separate sarcasm from humor in your mind, and go read my post, Your Jokes Suck: Why I Won’t Date You. Because I know that if you aren’t a parent yet, you’ll one day catch yourself treating your children the way you treat your friends and your significant other, right now.

Protect people with your words.

And when they are hurt by your words, track down some humble pie, and listen to their hearts. They will give you the clues that will enable you to build them up – not tear them down – according to their needs.

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PS. Are you a parent who is guilty as charged? You now have the opportunity to teach your child an invaluable lesson – acknowledging that you aren’t perfect. Tell us that you are sorry, and you’ll try to do better. If you can say this to your child’s face, you just gave your child the tools to build healthy relationships with his or her future friends, co-workers, spouse, and children. We desperately need you to teach us how to apologize humbly. Please do.

PPS. Do you have scars from sarcasm? “This is what the LORD says: ‘Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing. There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sore, no healing for you. But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the LORD, ‘because you are called an outcast, for whom no one cares.’” Jeremiah 30. Also, “When she cries out to me, I will hear her, for I am compassionate.” Exodus 22:27

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I have had it. Being limited by others is one thing, but self-limitation is something that we must refuse to partake in. There has been much growing under the surface for awhile now, and it’s about to sprout. It’s going to cause a scene. In my personal life, in my professional life, and everywhere in-between. I’m getting my vision back, and I’ll explain this soon, as well as what it looks like. But first, some backstory.

Direction, Expectation and Vision.

As kids, we were most likely given one of these things, and maybe two. The problem with this recipe for life is that it’s just like baking: if one ingredient is missing, it won’t rise.

The first half of my childhood was marked with direction and expectation.

By expectation, I mean hope merged with well-meaning standards. Expectancy to do well, expectantancy that I was fully equipped to succeed. Let yourself escape from the “my parents pushed me too hard” for a moment and recognize the healthy benefit of expectation. Children should never doubt that they have what it takes to be and become an amazing, fully alive, valuable human being. Complete with glittering stars and confetti.

Direction. Direction is a gift. If we were blessed with ‘involved’ parents or teachers, they pointed us in healthy directions. They laid out our schooling in a wise and effective way, with our best interests in mind. They recognized our strengths and put corrolating opportunities in our paths, encouraging us along the way. They affirmed both our interests and our bents, and showed us how to manifest our talents in real, tangible ways. They introduced structure to our creative, questioning minds and taught us how the world worked.

But vision, I lacked.

Vision. The ability to see the purpose, the meaning, the big picture. Something that resonates in the depths of your heart that fights when all odds are against you. What makes good men great. There was no ultimate goal, and no driving force that had been anchored in my heart that held me faithful to a consistent path.

Vision can go one of two ways. Vision can be implanted deep into your heart, the core of the being that is You. Or, it can become a sometimes-mocking voice that taunts you with not being enough until you accomplish enough to reach something distant and unattainable. Healthy vision is drawn out of who you are and the purpose of your life. Unhealthy vision is simply expectation on steroids. Re-read that.

I’ll cut my parents a break on this. It’s nearly impossible to give a young child true vision within
the bounds of his or her education without it seeming like expectation taken too far. Debilitating, can’t-live-up-to, never-good-enough expectancy. In order to impart vision to a child, a clean line must be drawn between school (accomplishments) and his or her personal identity. Children define themselves by their schooling – and so they should! It’s the majority of their daily life. They aren’t old enough to compartmentalize and to separate who they are from what they do and how they do it. Still, if you are influencing the life of a child, make every effort to draw that line, and plant seeds deep into their soul – let go of pruning for a bit.

Let me transition to the second half of my “education years.”

My unhealthy vision culminated when I was 14 years old. My parents were ecstatic. Finally, I cared. I was motivated, I pushed myself, and it seemed to them that I had finally found something I loved. Any outsider watching my outrageous ‘success’ would have assumed years of direction, expectation and vision had finally collided and was resulting in the type of fireworks that are every parents’ dream for their child. What they saw was me latching onto success in the political and educational realm – something “clicking” for me internally.

What was really going on was the invisible birth of a new vision. A new love. Unfortunately, it manifested itself in a way that (I believe) caused my parents to withdraw their direction. Perhaps it seemed that it wasn’t needed – direction was complete. I became obsessed with politics, teaching, traveling, staffing, speaking, debate, week-long conferences – all at the age of 14. Not because I loved the content, but because I LOVED people. Networking. Connections. Traveling. Seeing new things, feeling new things, hearing new things. I loved the necessity of attention to detail, organization – all infused with Big Ideas. A new love and a new vision was growing rapidly, but the content was all wrong.

This continued throughout high-school, literally ’til the end of the first semester of senior year when I had 43 credits and only needed 21 to graduated. I was at the end of my rope with classes on politics, American history and economics. Yes, they interested me – but so did other things. I was burned out. Two isolated, off-color incidents had pulled me out of both major high-school social networks (within the political & debate realms) and I was left with a handful of things I just didn’t care about anymore, revealing the unhealthy vision in all of it’s nakedness.

Other things – other people – were pulling on my heart strings, and I was slowly processing through this unhealthy vs healthy vision that slowly been weaving itself through my heart and mind.

I still had the expectation, and I had conflicting visions. And no direction.

So I quit. I spent the second half of senior year working, trying to deal with family issues, found that I couldn’t – and left. I dropped everything. I moved out, moved to Phoenix, and started a new life. I made some mistakes, yes – but when we’re burned out, we burn bridges. And sometimes when we reach a level of inner turmoil, we have to give ourselves forgiveness in advance, with the understanding that death precedes life. And more often than not, that pain births vision.

The next five years was spent filtering, re-filtering, and identifying vision. Finding the direction that I lost. Turning down the expectation a few notches. Seeking wisdom and fighting to find the correct measurements of these three that will result in something that will rise.

I explain this all to you in hopes that you will somehow be able to pick out some structure points that connect with your story. In hopes that you will begin to draw the line between your expectation-on-steroids vision and your true, heart-and-soul vision. In hopes that you can grasp and appreciate the outrageous task that is parenting, and cut your parents some slack. In hopes that you will make a conscious effort to draw the line between actions and heart in your children, now or later. In hopes that you recognize the lack of direction given to you in your own life, come to terms with it, and now seek it out.

It’s never too late, and your life is still as pliable as it ever was. Truly.

Find the sources of your expectation, or lack thereof.

Find the sources of your direction, or lack thereof.

Find the sources of your vision, and your lack thereof.

Reflect, be released, choose love, and move forwards.

Vision is everything – fight for it.

I will post more on vision later; I know that not nearly enough was said about it, and I raised some internal questions that I haven’t answered yet. Until then, I will email a copy of Danielle LaPorte’s Authentic Dreaming Worksheet to anyone that would like it. Leave your email in the comments. She’s a vision addict, and an amazing asset in recovering it.

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