I’ve found that the hardest part of being a parent is watching your child/children hurt no matter the age. There is but a very brief period of time that as a parent you can actually sooth that hurt or even truly understand it, change a diaper, feed them, kiss a scraped knee but as they get older, more worldly; everything we hope them to do the reasons become less obvious and less easily fixed, it at all. The truly crazy thing is or that I’m learning is that we spend so much time “molding” our kids into something – some idea of what we believe will bring them success, happiness and love…. what we didn’t have, couldn’t give them and now here I am 50+ and it dawns on me that all that stuff that was “learned” out of me was the very stuff that would today be my measure of success, happiness and love. All those times we said go slow, you aren’t ready, you don’t know yet – you might, could … was all to prevent experiences we’d had that didn’t work out for us. I feel in love the first time when I’d stopped caring what everyone around me would think and selfishly thought what do I want. and I did think I was selfish and it was a big step one, I kept to myself for a long time like I was doing something bad or wrong because I had found someone who cared about me and treated me well, that love didn’t work out like the fairy tales and we didn’t live happily ever after – well that’s not totally true – I have lived happily ever after – it taught me a valuable lesson about love – and how much I wanted Love in my life. It opened my eyes to what real love was like and that it most often didn’t look like we thought it would – it was something so personal to each of us and so unlike what Disney has portrayed in the tales we love to read to our kids and the dream they invoke. I wonder if kids today (my kids) in the desire for instant gratification will feel and know that this feels like what true love really is — there is so much in front of their faces on social media and tv and in songs that isn’t the right portrayal , that doesn’t happen in real life that I fear that all the wonderous things that can happen between two people who have chosen to be there for each other will disappear and really be the parts of the modern day fairy tale.
As a parent I think we all realize there is a time our children listen to us and a time they don’t. That time that if you do speak it may not be taken in the manner intended and you prefer not to be misunderstood instead you want them to know you still love them unconditionally.
Let’s face it we felt the same way. Now my mom didn’t hesitate to speak her mind and as much as I appreciate that honesty today I also know That there were many many times I may have gone to her sooner had I not known I’d get the rundown of all I’d done wrong p rior to any good advice or help and the truth was I knew what I’d done wrong I think we all inherently know what were suppose to do weather or not that’s what we do is the crux of the problem.
I realize there is so much I do want to tell them pass on so to speak. Then I realized how sometimes we take advice and or information better from strangers than from those who we’ re closest to and thought maybe I could got some of my thoughts here from time to time and if they find it and its helpful great if someone else finds my words helpful as well thats great too and for me I get all these things running around in my head down.
Roots 