I Promise You – I know
I can be high a little high strung at times. I worry about a lot of things. Crazy things. Things I won’t go into tonight.
But I try really hard not to put that on my kids. I like to sit back and let them be free.
I have been catching a bit of flack for it recently and I just feel like I need to be clear with something.
I promise you, I know most of what is going on. Some things get by me, as they do all of us. But we deal with things as they come up.
The world will not end because my son refuses to cut his hair, or my daughter wants to shave hers. I promise it won’t make either of them serial killers or out of control teens. What it will do is make them feel heard.
I will sit back at the playground and allow my one-year-old to climb and jump where she pleases. If no one is waiting I will even let them go up the slide.
It isn’t because I don’t care. It isn’t because I am unaware. It is because I trust them to know their limits. That seven-year-old on the monument has been climbing everything he could fit his pudgy toes in for as long as he could balance. Because he learned how to balance and trust himself. He learned that risk is good.
I stood so close and silent when they were little. To catch them just in case they fell. Sometimes they did. Sometimes there was blood, tears, and fear. Through that , they learned their bodies and their boundaries and as a result, they can be just a little freer.
isn’t that we all miss from childhood. The feeling of being free?
Because that childhood freedom is fleeting. They grow up so very fast. I want them to enjoy these years even more than I do. Because in the end, I am not raising cattle, I am loving children.
Share this:
