For my wife and I, parenting is the most important job we have in this life.
Meeting the basic physical needs of our kids is merely the “table stakes” of good parenting, we seek to do more than that by also meeting (and exceeding) their emotional, creative, intellectual and spiritual needs as well.
We’re not perfect parents by any stretch, but we are proactively and lovingly engaged in every aspect of their lives as we nurture them toward maturity.
One of the lessons that we continually strive to instill in our daughters is found in the book of Exodus chapter 20, verse 12 and it reads:
“Honor your father and mother that you will have long life….”
We’re convinced that this common sense instruction results in a promise of life that ultimately benefits our children and helps them avoid a host of bad decisions that can leech the life out of them – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Kim and I also try to model this behavior for our girls by honoring our own parents respectively, which brings us to the point of this post.
It’s easier to honor parents who are still living (such as my wife’s) by spending time with them, making memories together and blending them into our lives to the best of our ability.
However, when your parents are deceased (such as mine) it’s a little harder to honor them although I try to keep their memories alive through writings such as this one and echoing the life lessons they taught me growing up. But we’ve now been blessed with another way to honor my folks.
We’re having a boy!
For a while now, I had all but resigned myself to the belief that my parent’s surname would die with me – that was until yesterday when we learned via ultrasound that our 19-week baby has a Y-chromosome. While our family name might just be a protracted collection of consonants with a healthy dose of vowels mixed in, it’s actually a legacy that stretches back generations and will continue to move forward for at least one more.
For context, I’m Salvatore Nichols Constantino the VII – “Nichols” was my mother’s maiden name to honor her father. My wife and I have decided that to honor my dad, our son will be named Salvatore James Constantino the VIII – “James” is the first name of my wife’s dad to honor him as well.
While we’re thrilled to be blessed with a son for the reasons outlined above, that only enhances the double blessing we already have in our lives with our two girls. Our new baby will be loved as much as our girls, but not more than our girls – that’s simply impossible. However, just as our love for each daughter is unique, we can’t wait to see our unique love unfold for our son. God has surely blessed our family again and it’s a multifaceted honor to be having a boy.
