Parents are People TOO!

I was talking with some friends recently and we hit on the subject of parenting. Mainly we talked about how our children saw us as parents. Children tend to look at parents when they are young as unbeatable super heroes. We run to the rescue with the special missing blanket or we scoop them up and hold them after they fall. Their vision tends to change as they move into their teen years when the normal wave of adolescence courses through their bodies and they realize that they know everything and adults are idiots. That’s when the fun begins.

Healing wounds and righting wrongs are no longer expected, now it’s time to pony up with some cash and goods. Skip the hugs and hold the advice. If you really love them you will let them­­_______(fill in the blank). Oh and by the way, you really don’t understand how things are “Now a days”. There is eye rolling, door slamming, hurtful things said and then we as parents are sitting there staring at the door wondering how all that just happened.

The truth is kids, we are just people. We came thru the same system that you are going through now. Some parents read “What to expect when your expecting” and maybe even made it thru a few toddler books. More adventurous parents may have read even more parenting books. In the end, we can only draw and what we know when we parent. We have emotional wounds and hurts you know nothing about and we don’t want you to. We have loved and lost, watched loved ones die and cried ourselves to sleep. Most of all we parents have worried about you and how to raise you so you are not hurt and broken. We have also worried about passing on our wounds to you.

Mainly you should know that every time something in our life happened it became a part of who we are packed away deep inside, just like it will for you. As hard as we try to protect you from seeing our scars, they still show up in our day to day lives and in our parenting. Parents generally do not sit down with their children and have heart to heart talks about their lives and what they have been through, our baggage tends to unpack itself a little at a time until you end up with a little of it too.

Parents are people too, just like you are. We do our best and we love you more than you will ever understand until you have your own child. You are part of who we are our good and our bad and even on our worst day, you are still the best thing we have ever done. If you feel like we aren’t enough, or the best at what we have done for you, we are sorry, but this is who we are... people just like you.