At least for me, one measure of myself as a man, as an individual, has been how well I have parented my children. Compared to that, how much money I've made, how many awards I've won, and how many degrees I've earned are insignificant details. And it hasn't been enough for me to just "be" a parent: I had to learn how to parent.
Protecting and nurturing your children and preparing them for the next level of their lives compel a new understanding of the responsibility of parenting. Everything your children will ever be, they are now becoming. You are raising adults, not children. You are writing on the blank slate of your children. Sure, they inherited a lot: maybe your skin color, or the color of your eyes or your body type. But so much of what they will become is a function of what they learn, and so much of that is what they learn from you.
Your job is to prepare them to do well in this world when you're no longer around to help them. If you always entertain your children when they're bored, they'll never learn to entertain themselves. If you comfort them every time they cry, they'll never learn to self-soothe or take care of themselves. You have to teach your child to live without you.
This means the best way to protect them is to teach them to protect themselves when you're not around, since you won't be there forever. After all, BAITERS (Backstabbers, Abusers, Imposters, Takers, Exploiters, Reckless – people in your life who are negative and exploitive, and cheat, use and abuse others) are unlikely to approach your children when you are there, hovering over them. Predators will carve your child out from the herd and then take advantage of them when they're isolated.
But you have to strike a balance so your children don't see the world as a scary, hurtful, horrible place that they should fear rather than a place that must be respected and managed. There's a difference between paranoia and healthy skepticism, between fear and awareness. Of course, there are places your children can go and places they can't go and things they can do and things they can't. For them to understand the difference, you have to prepare them by building strength and confidence within them.
The goal of all your discipline is for your children to internalize your lessons and become self-disciplined. You tell your children to brush their teeth, but sooner, rather than later, they should discipline themselves to brush their teeth ... or get enough sleep, or eat their vegetables before their dessert, or do their chores or their homework. Your goal as a parent is to work yourself out of a job -- to become a voice that lingers in their heads in your absence.
And the way to measure your worth and value as a parent is to ask yourself this: How well am I doing in teaching my children to value themselves, love themselves, have confidence in themselves, protect themselves, and do for themselves? And all of your teaching needs to be relevant to the world that you have now learned we live in.
Modified excerpt from Life Code: The New Rules For Winning In The Real World by Dr. Phil McGraw (Bird Street Books).
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