In our day to day lives it's very easy to have our vision clouded. We become consumed by everything from our children's grades to overdue taxes. At the end of the proverbial day, however, there's only one thing that really matters: our relationships with each other.

When you have kids, the foundation of their relationships starts at home. Our children model their behaviors after what they see. If we're not being respectful to our spouse of significant others, how will our children act? If we lace everything we say with sarcasm, what will our children do? If we only worry about our day-to-day immediate needs, what will our children see? Further complicating our jobs as parents we all know that young children and 'tweens only see and react to what's immediately in front of them anyway. I'm sure we could argue that about many teenagers and certain 40 year-olds.

While every child is wired differently, and if you're the parent of more than one child you are constantly amazed how the same gene pool can produce such radically different creatures, the responsibility for guiding these little people lies on our shoulders. After all, that's why we carry the label of parent. Maybe I should re-label that as “Parent.”