Giving Each Other Room to Grow Up
@bethvogt
Sometimes I think my now-adult children believe I didn’t want them to grow up.
Yes, there are days I miss their toddler voices. The funny ways they mangled words and their odd preferences for a particular food or a stuffed animal or a certain pair of pajamas.
I’ll even admit to saying, “Why you want to leave me?” in a very bad Greek accent, à la the overprotective father in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when they were older and leaving home for extended trips.
But that was nothing more than a joke. Really.
What my children didn’t realize back then, when they were oh-so-eager to be big, is that my husband and I were all about letting them grow up.
We start letting our children go the day we cheered them on as they pulled up to stand, grasping the side of their crib. Next, we held their hands until they were ready for us to let go so they could take their first wobbly steps on their own – away from us.
Sending them to school? Letting go.
Encouraging them to participate in sports? A giant step in letting them go, as we signed those “you can’t hold us responsible if your child is injured, maimed, or dies” release forms. I lost track of how many of those my husband and I signed during the years. Sure, we wanted our children to play soccer. To wrestle. To horseback ride. To be on the swim team. All of these experiences help them mature.
And it’s scary, too.
Don’t get me started on teaching them to drive – but yes, that’s a right of passage that’s all a part of growing up.
I’ve always said being a mom means cheering on my children as they pursue their dreams. It also means getting out of their way as they grow up and make life choices. Bigger and bigger choices.
The cheering part? That’s easy. Fun.
Getting out of their way? Okay, sometimes that took me a little longer to do. But I knew it was for their best – and mine, too. I wanted them to grow up into the person God made them to be. To make their choices. To use their talents.
Perhaps children need to realize that, all the while they are growing up, their parents are growing up, too.
Having the title of “mom” and “dad” doesn’t mean we don’t have things to learn. Some of the most important things we needed to discover? Who our children are. How to best love and support them. And this is an ongoing process.
Even while we’re cheering on our kiddos and helping them grow up, we’re changing too. Dealing with our stuff. Dragging a few skeletons out of the closet and tossing them in the trash.
Sure, it would be nice if we’d done all our maturing before children came along – but that’s not how it works. The best kind of life is one where we never stop changing. Where we embrace our own growth – and our children’s growth, too.
Giving Each Other Room to Grow Up https://bit.ly/3ekAvUH #parents #children
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'All children, except one, grow up.' Quote from Peter Pan by author J.M. Barrie https://bit.ly/3ekAvUH #families #perspective
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