My youngest is a do-er. Any task where tools can be utilised, muscles stretched and creative energy unleashed, that’s heaven.
And it welcomes its own journey of negotiation, surrender, guidance and boundaries. Much like most areas of parenting really.
This past week we designed and created a rockery in our garden. Our ideas were not fully aligned. One of the areas of parenting I have struggled with is finding the balance between fully embracing the creative vision of my child, measured against not only my own desires, but actually more the practicality and functionality of these endeavours.
I have learned that leaning fully into their own ideas has so often just led to crushing disappointment as they cannot yet manifest in practical terms. This has its own gifts, and disappointment is not something to shy away from. Counterbalanced by the knowledge that with a little guidance these ideas can create the most glorious of lessons, skills and confidence. The cherry on the top is also respecting my own visions, to model holding my boundaries and not allowing the ego of child to believe themselves too worldly, too early. And then of course there is surrender….
All this in just a few days of moving rocks, planting flowers and scattering stones. All of this everyday as a parent.
When to guide, when to step back and allow, when to stand strong, when to surrender to flow.
These are life lessons for me but the painful edge is that it can feel huge that I am this influencer of principles to real, live humans who are still growing and forming and absorbing it all. The pressure can feel utterly overwhelming until I remember that I’m just human too, that we chose each other from the stars and love is love the world over after all.
So to all you mama’s and papa’s agonising over the most recent battle, the lost moment, the unsaid apology, the what if; I want to offer the words that I comfort myself with.
My work is their work, my lessons are theirs. We are intertwined for this very reason, for this moment in time, for this day of chaos, for this hour of hilarity. All of it is and all of it isn’t. Everything is just as it should be.
Love Hope Faith and Grace.
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First Written on Social Media 27 March 2021