Becoming a Parent
At varying times in life, we end up being a parent. It doesn’t always require multiple hours of labor prior but often results in putting in time after the fact of birth. Mothers will always hold a special place in our hearts. Their devotion is honored yearly and fathers get that same scarce amount of praise. It’s best to think in terms of quality not quantity for this paltry day of gratitude. Physically becoming a parent is a difficult process and a lot of energy is expended by both parents in the early months of raising our species. But there are moments of bliss and open-heartened love to make up for the lack of sleep and later realization that the genie is not ever going back into the bottle of life.
Living the Parent Life
The opportunity to raise a child is often seen as a redo. The challenge is to make up for all the incorrect things that occurred in the life of the parent overseeing the decisions of the youngest member of the tribe. By manufacturing standards, the results should continue to level up and at some point create a perfect product. By design, this ends up being impossible. At a few points, there is the tendency to think that whatever parenting skill you have is not enough. The child ends up throwing a wrench into many of the plans. This is usually a scenario the parent did not anticipate. It looked like it was just going to be simple to fix this project by doing it the right way.
Throw out the bath water
Just about the time a parent wants to give up, a promising thought has the potential to provide hope. Discarding the original plans might seem like a huge step, but it actually frees up the future decisions. Start over. Be the design engineer again and rethink your automatic responses. Maybe it helps to think of your child as a newer model that needs special consideration. Whatever it takes to interrupt whatever wasn’t working well is permissible. At birth, parents are not given a defining rule book for a very good reason. It would be useless immediately. Besides, who really knows better what a child needs most than those willing to spend their lives with them and provide them free room and board along the way. In reality, that last thought isn’t the truth either. The honest answer is that there is no perfectly correct way. At least there is wiggle room in that belief.
Try again
Let’s redefine parenting, just a little. Let’s all thank the parents who are doing the day to day stuff. Feeding, watering, getting that little bugger to sleep, off to school, figuring out what activities to pursue and holding them close when that monster in the closet decides to sleep walk. For the rest of us, let’s provide some support. Recognition, appreciation and admiration will go a long way towards the worker parents. For the children in our worlds, let’s provide smiles, interest, patience and all the encouragement we would have loved. And let’s make sure we lavish that attention on them. It will help us undo our own little kid irritations and continue to improve the product that will lead in the future. It’s the least we can do for ourselves. Eventually, those who travel behind us in time will be in charge of our futures. May they lead with courage.
Are there opportunities for you to parent? Can you reparent yourself to fix some scratched knees? Look into the eyes of the next child you meet. Can you see their future grown-up?
