This is my response to a friend's blog post of parenting. It really made me think about my own relationship with my parents and how I wonder if things would've turned out differently.

"Man, where was that when MY parents were trying to figure out how to raise me? They pretty much taught me that life consists of going to school, getting a good job, and getting married. And at age 31 1/2, only one of those has been true for me so far (going to school).

Yeah, they took me to church every week and sent me to a "christian" school, but I never really learned what it meant to be a christian. I could recite John 3:16 with the best of them, and knew all the Sunday School and theology class answers. But there was no spiritual life. No passion for Jesus. My family hardly ever talked about "religious" stuff, other then to complain about church politics or other useless crap. They never challenged me in my faith, never encouraged me to take my faith to the next level. Instead, the relied on schools and churches to do exactly what they should have done.

Now that I'm done ditching my parents, I have to admit that things could have been worse. They're still married and still attend church, even though I myself have branched out into "modern churches". They still don't fully understand my choice, though. To them, the denomination (which shall be nameless) we all grew up in is the best way of handling things, even though most of the people I met in either school or church at that time were just going through the motions."

End rant..