Karma Is A…

A quote by William Shakespeare has me thinking…

“The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children.”

Heavy quote.

As people and parents, we grow and mature over time. That maturation happens in different ways. A lot of my personal growth has come from making bad decisions, learning from them, and understanding how to move forward the right way.

Sometimes I wonder if my sins will be laid upon my children. That somehow things in my past that weren’t my finest moments will create some kind of negative karma.

Whether you believe in a higher power, believe in the universe, or simply believe in creating your own luck, you might think about this stuff. You may wonder if something you did at some point in your life will not only affect you, but someone you love — that there will be some kind of consequences.  

OK, maybe this is crazy talk. But who wants to take that chance? I think of certain situations that consume the mind of a father…especially when they have a daughter.

They say men fall in love again and again when they have daughters. They steal your heart from their first day in your arms. (Facts. I speak from experience.) However, that princess of yours will grow up and start dating young men. And when she does, you as a father will pray and hope that the young man your daughter dates won’t break her heart. Because as a father, you would do anything in this world for her to not feel pain or sadness, correct?  

Before you answer that, let’s rewind for a second. When you were a young man, how did you treat the young ladies that you dated? Did you treat them with respect or did you send them home with tears? Because if you have a track record of making females cry, as a father, you may be wiping those same tears from your daughter’s face one day.

I have learned a lot since my youth. But I may have said some things I regret…and broken some hearts.

Now I am not saying something you did as a teenager will dictate your child’s life. You could have a spotless past, be the nicest, most caring man in the world and your daughter can still come home one day with a broken heart. Nobody can predict the future.

(Just what’s on my mind right now, stay with me…)

And if you have a son, you are definitely going to ask yourself something like the following: “Do I want my son to grow up to be the man I was or the man I am today?”

A father expects his son to be as good a man as he was meant to be. Our job as fathers is to raise our sons to be better men than we ever were. They are our DNA, a representation of our parenting, and the ones who will keep our name alive when we are no longer here. We don’t want them to have to learn from the same mistakes we made. We don’t want them to create bad karma for themselves.  

Hopefully, whatever higher power is out there won’t hold individual moments against us. Hopefully, learning and growth matters. We don’t know what the future holds, but I do believe there’s at least some truth to “what goes around, comes around.” Don’t take the chance that your child may have to hold the weight of your karma, good or bad.

Help them create their own good karma from the start.

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