Listening and Hearing

I am feeling guilty. Feeling guilty seems to be a lifestyle for me and I suspect for most parents. Now that I have a blog I have a new guilt on my list. I feel guilty when I haven't made an entry in a few days [or more]. On the other hand, sometimes I feel that blogging is like a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear. Are my rants, raves, thoughts and ideas going out to an empty field? If so, they is an irony here, because when I speak thoughts, ideas, rants, and even rave [positive that is] to my kiddos I also feel like it is speaking to an empty field. If any of you are fans of Broadway musicals.... perhaps you know "1776" which also became a movie. In it a tired and battle weary George Washington ends one of his hundreds of battlefield reports to the Continental Congress.... "Is anybody listening? Does anybody care?"

My blog is hardly the equivalent of an army general's report to the leaders of his country. [And, if I had hundreds of readers, which I clearly do not, then my guilt would be higher when I get busy and fall behind my personal blog goals.] So, today I started by thinking about blogging and debating whether it is more diary/catharsis or more communication. But it quickly became thoughts about our parenting communication. More often than not, one is tempted to feel that much of our parenting is falling on deaf ears. That is, ears that have chosen to tune us out. But like the Continental Congress, the children are hearing even if they try not to listen. And as for caring... well we know that they don't often care now. But I think the only reason we want them to care is so that what we say makes a difference. And for that I have come to believe that what we say does make a difference, even if they don't listen, even if they don't care.