Despite our best efforts as parents, we will always make mistakes in raising our children. it's inevitable. there are so many decisions to be made in any given day, week, month, or year. it's an inhuman task to make all of these decisions correctly. who would even want to try for perfection?
we shouldn't worry too much, though, because it is precisely our mistakes that teach our children the most about life. life is full of mistakes, obstacles, and trouble. shielding our children from these by striving for perfection in our own parenting does them no favors.
given this, a parent might be tempted to give up trying to make good decisions and simply let the chips fall where they may. admittedly, that attitude is not without its benefits, but it goes too far in the other direction. children are much more observant than we think, but often draw the wrong conclusions from what they observe. if we give up trying to make the right decisions, they might get the message that we don't care about their future.
we can take comfort in this much: we teach our children even when we're not trying to. that doesn't mean we should stop trying to do our best, to make the right decisions whenever possible. it just means that we shouldn't beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. either it won't matter because it's something small, or it just might build some character in our children, a commodity that will serve them well.
which of these sentences from the passage most directly expresses the author's claim?
"we shouldn't worry too much, though, because it is precisely our mistakes that teach our children the most about life."
"if we give up trying to make the right decisions, they might get the message that we don't care about their future."
"we can take comfort in this much: we teach our children even when we're not trying to."
"shielding our children from [mistakes] by striving for perfection in our own parenting does them no favors."