How Scientology Helped Me Raise Kids Who Care
I’m just going to brag a little bit here and say that I genuinely consider myself to be a successful mom and a successful grandmother.
I know you all think that I’m probably just full of a lot of social media fluff and false bravado, but I’m going to say that again anyway: when it comes to being a mom and being a grandma, I’m a success. This time around, I killed it.
Why do I say that?
Start with my kids: two happy, healthy, charming, intelligent, independent, hard-working, honest, productive and loving adults. Both happily married to wonderful spouses. Both busy raising families larger than the one they came from. Both very active in their communities, and both working hard to improve the world they see around them.
I do not mean to say that I take personal credit for their success. On the contrary! I applaud them for the ways in which they create their own lives, take charge of their own destinies, and in doing so, make the world a better place. Their success is, indeed, their own.
We were looking for ways to be better, kinder people. We found Scientology.
How else do I know that I’m a success? They don’t just love me, they like me. They include me. They are happy when I’m a part of their lives, and they enjoy sharing their lives and those of their children with me and with my husband. Family visits aren’t times of stress or anxiety—they are joyful occasions and, if anything, end too soon.
My two live in different cities, and they’ve always been a little competitive. Do I find some of my own success as a parent in the fact that they both actually WANT mom and dad to live with them as we move into those grandparent years, and compete a bit just to have us around? Yep. I do.
My seven grandkids range in age from 18 months to 12 years. They, like their parents, are happy, healthy, charming, intelligent, honest, independent and productive. Each one is unique and special and, NO, I don’t have a favorite. I love them all, and they all love me.
Does that seem ordinary to you? Or do you come from a family, like I did growing up, where family visits are difficult, stressful and even painful at times? Where sibling competition isn’t about who gets to visit grandma but who can avoid visiting this time? Where dad might be drunk before the second course and mom cries every Thanksgiving?
I loved my parents. Both are gone now. I have happy and joyful memories of them, along with the drama and the trauma. But as an adult, I did not want to become them. I did not want to raise my children by using fear and force. I knew that I needed to find a better way.
I met my husband 43 years ago. He came from a family that, like mine, had been built by parents who struggled unsuccessfully with their own problems while trying to raise children. We came together with a certainty that (a) we wanted to have children and (b) we didn’t want to “be like our parents.” We were looking for ways to be better, kinder people. We found Scientology.
Along with their Scientology studies, they studied and learned to respect other religious faiths and the valuable place that religion has in a free society.
I can say, without reservation, that Scientology technology saved our marriage, helped us free ourselves of past trauma and drama, and made us into loving, supportive, intelligent parents. We learned that good parents don’t just tell their children what to do or how to behave. They also listen to their children and respect their opinions. Through Scientology courses and counseling, we became parents who could nurture and support amazing children into adulthood, helping them without force and guiding them without fear.
I am proud of my success as a mother, and I am proud of my husband’s success as a father. Were we perfect? No, of course not. We made mistakes, and we learned from them. But here is the main way that I know we were successful as parents:
- My kids grew up wanting to be parents just like us.
- They are doing a great job!
And—oh yes—they were raised in the Scientology religion. Like other “Scientology kids,” they learned early on that Scientology is a religion one applies, and it can only be practiced from an honest and self-determined viewpoint. Along with their Scientology studies, they studied and learned to respect other religious faiths and the valuable place that religion has in a free society. Each embarked on their own spiritual journey, and found his or her own truth.
Now, as practicing Scientologists, they are raising their own children with the same basic certainty that they found as young Scientologists: that people are inherently good, and that religious freedom makes the world a better place for everyone.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Love to all,
Laurie Bartilson
