Parents, like their children, come in all sizes and shapes. You pack your child’s lunches for school with bento boxes and star-shaped cucumber sandwiches, notes of love and encouragement attached. I leave my children to their own devices (with set guidelines) when packing their lunches, like I did when I was in school.
You read to them in their bed, snuggle them until they fall asleep, and then tiptoe out of the room for the night. I say good night to them in the hallway outside their bedrooms, remind them to clean their faces and brush their teeth, and we part ways.
But are we really so different? Our parenting styles and philosophies may be night and day. We were probably raised completely differently by our parents. At the heart of it though, we are parents. We have that in common. We are teaching and raising and sheltering and nurturing our small people. We show love in different ways, but it is love. It is all love.
Maybe you do their laundry until they eventually move out of the house as young adults and even after that. Maybe you buy their groceries long past the point when they are financially capable of buying their own. Maybe they have a long list of weekly chores. Maybe they don’t get an allowance. Maybe you drive them to school.
There is a myriad of choices when it comes to raising children. We choose what works for us and what doesn’t. Tempting though it may be to judge other parents and/or feel inferior to them based on their social-media feeds, we’re not really so different. I try to remind myself of this when I feel like a less-than-perfect parent. When I feel like I am not doing my best job or could be doing so much better.
Aren’t we all trying to help them become rich and successful so they can care for us in our old age the best and truest versions of themselves?
Our goal is one and the same. Being a parent, at least a consciously responsible one, means providing a safe and healthy home and helping the fledglings until they are ready to fly off. That can look different for each family, and that is what makes it beautiful. A rainbow consists of many colors, and we get to paint our own.
