I didn't think that I lived vicariously through my children, but I guess all parents do in the way that my pastor mentioned it in his sermon yesterday. He said that when our children do well, it makes us look good, and the reverse is true when they mess up. He's right. I just didn't think I tried to make my children have the life their father and I had. I thought I encouraged them to find what would make them happy.

HOWEVER, yesterday I was talking on the phone with my daughter. She is finding her way back to happiness after a divorce, and she mentioned that she might go out to California to visit a friend. Now, I know she doesn't have the money to do that, and I told her so. Her dad and I have been encouraging her to save. Currently she is staying with her grandfather, but she is twenty-five and I know she wants to be independent. My daughter said she had some vacation time coming, and she wanted to do something special. When I told her that her father and I did not take vacations of that magnitude when we were her age, she responded with, "Well, I'm not you!"

Whoa! Does she feel that I have forced my values on her? I thought that I was pretty accepting as parents go. I think I will have to re-evaluate myself.

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