When You Are Interviewed By A Parenting Blog

I recently got featured as a blog’s Parent of the Month. That happens to be the first real interview I would ever grant to any website.

I have the permission of the blog author to share the interview with you here. Enjoy it.

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Aspiring Writer, Husband, Father… Parent of the Month

Welcome to our Parentinggist parent of the month. Let’s meet our guest.

My name is Victor Uyanwanne, husband to Jennifer, father of two energetic boys and an aspiring writer.

Great, can you throw more light on your writing.

For the past three years, I have been publishing posts bothering on life and living, family issues, blogging tips, poetry and many other things that tickle my fancy. My purpose is to inspire people and equip them with the right knowledge that will help them live happier.

Being a follower of Jesus Christ, the thoughts on my blogs are presented from a Christian worldview. If you want to read my writings first hand, they can be accessed via Victors’ Corner

Awesome blog, you’ve got, how do you combine your regular job, writing and family?

Thanks for the compliment. I will say, I am combining effectively well. I take my job seriously and I put in my best all the time.

Reading and writing are my top hobbies so I have fun doing both, especially at night after work and on weekends. Except because of Lagos traffic bottlenecks, anyone here should have plenty of time after work (from the close of work at 5pm daily to whenever he or she goes to bed) to do some personal things. That’s how I find time to hone my writing skills.

As for the family, I will give all the credit to my beautiful wife for holding forth strongly at the home front. She is really a gift from heaven to me; a helpmeet indeed.

Having said that, I will add that as much as possible I try to spend much time with my family whenever I’m not at work. And I usually cut out unnecessary outings. I don’t know about you, for me, family time is fun time and best time. I have two very inquisitive boys. Answering their numerous questions and bonding with them through mutual interactions have been one of my greatest pleasures as a dad.

We would like you to share some of the numerous questions from your boys, I’m sure we would benefit from them too or laugh it out.

I have had my boys asking me scores of questions. And many of those questions I answered correctly without much ado. Yet there were ones I had to think twice before answering.

For instance, one of them once asked me, “Daddy, why do we have ten fingers?” How does one answer that? Please help me out (smiles).

When they asked, “Daddy, what is the baby of a horse called?” I am ashamed to say that I had to quickly check “Google” on my smartphone before I could tell them it’s called “a foal.”

Of all the questions my boys have ever asked me, the one that impressed me most was when the older boy (then 4years plus) asked me how he could be able to make it to Heaven at the end of this life. I must say it was my privilege to lead him to Christ that Christmas morning.

Oh this is wonderful, I must say, so what advice do you have for parents who are reading this; how can we lead our kids to make Heaven?

Parents should share the simple truths of the gospel with their children and allow them to make up their mind about receiving Jesus Christ into their lives. It is not something that can be forced.

In addition, parents should always pray for their children, that they receive the Lord and follow His way. In my boy’s case, I had prayed for him even before he turned 2 years old that he would get to be born again before the age of eight. Fortunately for me, it happened much earlier than expected.

One other thing I will add is that parents should by their conducts show good examples to their children. Children are good observers and they learn alot from their parents. If we want our children to be candidates of heaven, we should not live our lives as candidates of hell.

Thank you so much for honouring our invitation.

You are welcome. The pleasure is mine.

P.S: The interview was originally published on ParentingGist blog.

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What do you think?

Parenting is Learning

Source: Pinterest

“We learn every day,” so says that popular saying.

I know that is true in many aspects of our human endeavours. But being a relatively new parent, I have come to also realise that the statement is particularly true of parenting.

Parenting is a huge responsibility. But it is also full of opportunities to learn new things. 

As parents we know that our children learn from us. But beyond that, any sincere parent would acknowledge that every now and then, he or she also learns from his or her children as well.

I have experienced it several times…

I have a three-year old and a five year old. Sometimes I set out to teach them some things and in the process I learn new things from them as well. Even I have enriched my vocabulary merely listening to them. And I believe I’m not alone here.

There have been times they asked me questions I didn’t have immediate answers for. But as I looked around for the most appropriate feedback to give to them, I got to learn new things in the process.

I also get to use my experience in guiding them. But I have since realised that experience is not enough; my experience is my experience, not theirs.

Just like many new parents, I would admit that I don’t know it all. So I am still learning… And it seems to me that every opportunity that gets created for me to teach my kids something is also an opportunity for me to learn something too – no matter how small.

Granted that when I am teaching them, I tend to do most of the talking most times. But it pays to listen to what they have to say as well. Listening is a key part of parenting. Every parent should develop the skill.

I would not say I have arrived in that respect. But I know I’m no longer where I used to be when the parenting journey got started.

Now I’m learning to be a little more open and more accommodating to their many ideas and perspectives. They don’t have their way most times (obviously, they shouldn’t). But I shouldn’t have my way all the time either.

They may not be aware yet that relating with them opens a new vista of knowledge for me. But I have come to realise that I am learning a lot from them.

So in only five years experience on the job, I am convinced that parenting is learning. That’s my  perspective. What’s yours?

 

©Copyright 2018 | Victor Uyanwanne

5 Reasons I Could Not Have Been Single For Life And Be Satisfied

Gentle warning: This post is extremely personal. But don’t take it personally.

In the previous post, I stated the fact that some people are single for life and satisfied. But I went on to explore the idea that I could not have been unmarried for life and be completely fulfilled.

My well-thought out humble conclusion then was that:

As for me, I see marriage as a calling I had to embrace because I could never have been totally satisfied with a lifelong celibacy.

To put things in a clearer perspective, I am using this post to advance five reasons I believe that I could not have been completely satisfied if I had remained single for life.

2 Missing Treasures Found in The Midst of Chaos

It’s been my desire to build a private library in my bedroom for a while now. To that effect, I have been acquiring scores of books covering many areas of interest such as leadership, productivity, parenting, character and talent development, faith, prayer, prosperity, evangelism, business, public speaking, and so on.

But as I am yet to build the appropriate shelf to arrange the books away as nicely as they should be, I have them temporarily stacked up on an average sized table placed at a far corner of my bedroom.

From there I can always take any book to read as often as I am able to do so. One obvious constraint I have with this arrangement is that the retrieval of any specific book is always difficult.

Most often than not, the title I want to read is always tucked in the middle of the others, or so it seems. Therefore, I always have to scatter a few others in order to get to the one I want.

This was the situation I found myself during the penultimate week of June 2016. I had scurried through the stack to fish out a nice book to read during the few days I took off work. In the process, I had inadvertently strewn a few other unneeded books here and there on the floor around the table, with the hope that I would rearrange them back later.

Little did I know that this was a sufficient invitation for my energetic 2 and 4-year old boys to help do further unsolicited scattering. I came back to the room several hours later only to find all the books scattered everywhere on the floor. Instead of the usual stack, what I saw was an empty table with all the books sprung everywhere on the floor.

I stood there dumbfounded. “What type of chaos is this?” I asked myself, without expecting any meaningful explanation from the two toddlers who obviously had a nice time scattering the books on the carpeted floor.

I quickly drove them out of the room and called my wife to see what these boys had done in the bedroom. She too could not believe her sight….

I was obviously not happy with the chaotic situation I met on the bedroom floor. But I would not ‘kill’ the children for it. I simply abandoned the room partly for a few days… I had more important things to do… It wasn’t until the third day before I returned to arrange the books back on the temporary ‘shelf’. And it took me almost three hours to get the job neatly done.

But I discovered to my utmost surprise that I had tremendous fun doing it. I skimmed through all the titles and had the books sorted according to their authors (I read authors as much as I read titles). In the end, I had all the books back and stacked neatly on the table till when the proper bookshelf would be provided.

Here was the most interesting part of the exercise of bringing order out of the chaos: I found two precious items that made me so grateful.

One was a diary I had kept about 8 years ago, which I didn’t know its whereabouts. As I flipped through its pages, I found poems, songs and other thoughts I had personally written down previously, which I had never shared with anyone. I came to realise that many of them would be suitable for posts on this blog in the weeks to come. Honestly, it will be my joy to share them with you.

The second thing I found was the last updated manuscript of a book I had written over 10 years ago which I am yet to publish. Our home computer then had crashed and unfortunately I couldn’t  recover the soft copy. So the surviving print out meant everything to me. But I couldn’t trace it until that day, due to a change in our accommodation then.

All I had before I found this one was an older version of the manuscript. Now I am grateful that I can now revisit the newest version, have it reviewed again and then hopefully have it published someday.

Although I was initially annoyed that my children scattered my books into a chaotic mess, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. And out of what I perceived to be a disorderly situation, I found two treasures I thought I had previously lost. All things worked out together for my good, I might say!

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? Please leave a word or two in the comment section.

©CopyRight | Victor Uyanwanne

Can Unhappy Parents Raise Happy Children?

Good parenting is very challenging. That’s a common belief. But I guess you may not fully comprehend all the angles to it until you wear the shoes.

If you are already a parent as I am, then you are in a familiar terrain. But if you are not one yet, I hope it is part of your plan to become one in future. The experience will be wonderful.

I became a dad for the first time in the middle of 2012. From then till now I have two energetic boys that now call me ‘daddy.’ The second one just turned two years while the first one will be four in July.

You know, it is a great privilege to be a dad. But it is also a great responsibility to shoulder. And if you ask me what kind of dad I would want to be, I would not hesitate to tell you that I would want to be a great one – a great dad to my kids, both in words and in deeds.

How do I mean?

I desire to be a perfect example for my children to follow.  I desire to be a shining light that shows them the best ways to live in order to lead a purposeful and meaningful life.

I also want to be their friend, their hero, their confidante, their mentor, their teacher and their ‘everything’ that is possible for me to be under the Earth. But sometimes, I worry that I may not always measure up to these awesome standards as excellently as I would want to.

The reason for that is not far-fetched: I am not perfect – nobody is. Only God is the indisputable perfect Father!

You may think that I shouldn’t worry about it since all humans are not perfect.  I am not unaware of my limitations as a mere human, but that shouldn’t stop me from trying my best.

What gives me a cause for concern is when my imperfections begin to show up in some ways that negatively affect the way I relate with friends, family and others alike. I am sure there are parents who feel that way too.

Understandably, my family – wife and kids – are the closest people to me. Those are the dearest people that look up to me for direction and for inspiration. But sometimes, it seems a daunting task to be all the best I could possibly be to them.

If you ask me what kind of dad I want to be, I would not hesitate to tell you that I would want to be a great one – in words and in deeds.

I want to be a happy father to my children and a happy husband to my wife. After all, a grumpy man would not make a good companion to anyone – family or not family. This is part of the reason I have realised that I should strive to always have my emotions under control.

As you know, someone gets hurt when negative emotions get out of hands. No matter the external pressures I face, I try to hold myself together in such a way that negative emotions such as depression, discouragement, anger, frustration, impatience and the likes do not run wild in me, to the detriment of my family or of any other person for that matter.

It has not always been easy to keep up with the expectation. But, I can always boldly say that the grace of God has been sufficient for me.

Recently I experience some moments of unhappiness over some dissatisfying situations around me. I became moody and it rubbed off on my wife. The result? Both of us became unhappy for a few days, negatively affecting our communication.

The situation might have gotten out of hand if we had not taken necessary steps to address it. Thanks to my wife, we were able to rise above that unhappy, moody feeling.

How did we do it?

We talked to ourselves and we talked to God too.

In talking to ourselves, we bridged the communication gap that was created by my moments of happiness. And in talking to God, we joined hands and prayed in faith over the issues that burdened us. Both actions gave us the needed reliefs.

As we rounded off the prayers, my eyes fell on my kids lying peaceably in their sleep. In a brief moment of reflection following the observation and in the light of my not-so-cheerful countenance in the previous few day, I found myself thinking aloud to the hearing of my wife:

My Love, we cannot afford not to be happy as parents.  We need to be a good example to these boys.

My wife nodded in total agreement.

My desire is that our children will grow up seeing a healthy and happy relationship between my wife and I. I hope that they will see us as a veritable example for them to emulate.

It seems logical to think that unhappy parents may not be able to raise happy children. And I don’t want to be caught in that web. That’s why I wish to ask the question here, “Can unhappy parents raise happy children?”

What’s your take please?

©CopyRight | Victor Uyanwanne