Eddie Marie Durham 'While Being a Parent'

How One Mother Found Her Faith in God to Learn How to Raise Her Sons

Eddie Marie Durham 'While Being a Parent'

While Being a Parent  author Eddie Marie Durham shares her experiences, parenting advice, and most of all how to let God be your guide.

Rearing children in today’s society can be a task that is most difficult. While looking at so many children in the world with problems, one can get the idea that many parents have not learned some of what used to be the essential ways to rear a child. One might also wonder if today’s parenting is it losing some of its effectiveness. However, as a mother who wrote While Being a Parent, I know that being a good parent is still possible. One just needs to be focused on the task and also be dedicated to getting the best end results, concerned about the example they are displaying, and most of all be a follower of Jesus Christ’s teachings.

How One Mother Found Her Faith in God to Learn How to Raise Her Sons[/tweetthis]

One must be willing to do all they can to be the best parent they can be to make a child’s life pleasant and productive. The parent must be dedicated to making the child’s life a loving one and point him/her in the direction that will make them happy and successful. This can only be done by disciplined guidance, loving compassionate teachings and a demonstrated trust in God. In order to do this, the parent has to show love for ones fellowman, by being kind, and treating others as they wish to be treated. There also needs to be consistency in the life they live and dedication to doing the things that will set a good example for others to see. My book points the reader in that direction.

While Being a Parent, was written to describe some of the experiences I had while raising my boys. It includes a lot of things like how my youngest child reacts when I lost my Texas accent and began to sound like a foreigner. I also had some rather traumatic experiences to undergo with the health of my boys, as well as, some rather lively things. In addition to being a mother, I was also an elementary school teacher. I met hundreds of different parents and saw some results of different parenting styles, during 31 years of teaching. Noticing the different approaches the many parents had, gave me a wide variety of options to look at also. Some of them really affected the actions and the attitudes of the children involved. 

I myself had a few experiences during my childhood that affected how I raised my children. The loss of my father at the age of about ten affected me growing up. I also remembered the kind of loving and disciplinary care my mother gave, who was for me, an example of many of the things I wanted to be for my own children. My mother was a woman who had a quiet demeanor, a beautiful smile and a song on her lips at almost all times. She was also one who went beyond what anyone would have expected in rearing 13 children mostly on her own and with the help of a loving God!

I was married at eighteen years of age while still in eleventh grade in high school. I completed high school and was almost finished with my college degree when I gave birth to my first child. I went on to complete college and began teaching when my first child was about ten months old. I had to get involved with following my mother’s teaching by being a devoted church goer and allowed God to become the primary guide in my life. Because of my upbringing I never let life become devoid of my church attendance.  God may have been part of my life because of my mother but God became a major source of comfort and a real leaning post in difficult times.

The two real bad traumas came when both sons I gave birth to were grown men. The younger one was sidetracked by a wasp and ended up in the hospital with broken bones and other injuries that were totally life threatening! He was in the hospital for some time before we knew he would survive the experience. I made it through that experience with the help of the Lord, after all my prayers and those of church members and family.  As if that was not enough I received a call from my older son’s wife a while later, telling me that he was in a coma! He had been that way for two days. I went to Orlando, Florida to see him and had to remain with him for another three more days praying and leaning on God for his recovery before he came to himself! I retell both those experiences in my book.

Because of my love for my children I used whatever resources I could to be the best parent I could be. I knew because of where I had come from and my love for my children, that I needed help. God was there all the time and I leaned on Him and the Bible. I had Bibles all the time but they were not always used very much until after my children were born. My goal at that time was to be the best mom I knew how to be. That meant prayer, learning more of childcare and putting what I had learned into practice with God’s help. I also received into my heart just like he was biologically mine, the son my husband had before we married.

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