parenting

"If you want your child to succeed,
show them how to fail.
If you want them to be happy,
show them how to be sad.
If you want them to be healthy,
show them how to be sick.
If you want them to have much,
show them how to enjoy little.
Parents who hide failure, deny loss,
and berate themselves for weakness,
have nothing to teach their children.
But parents who reveal themselves,
in all of their humanness,
become heroes.
For children look to these parents
and learn to love themselves."

-William Martin: The Parent's Tao Te Ching

::elizabeth::

Looking at parenting like this gives me so much hope. I also get a lot of hope from realizing that parenting, like most any other relationship, is reciprocal. I have as much to learn from my children as they do from me. In the photo above, it is actually Jude who slowed down enough to notice the moss and feel it. There are many times, in seeing me distressed, I am reminded by Jude to “take a deep breath”. Not only does this take the pressure off me to be something that I cannot be, but it also acknowledges the divinity in them. It acknowledges that children are wonderful spiritual guides. They are tiny little mirrors without all the smudges, smears, and distortions that most of the mirrors of the world have. I am filled with gratitude that my children came into my life to help me learn how to love and be loved.

::lisa::

I have found mothering to be the most challenging adventure of my life. Many times along this path I have questioned myself… wondering if my parenting was providing the absolute best for my children. I think we all generally have hopes for our young people to grow up into well rounded, loving, and secure adults. We also know that as parents we play a very large contributing role to what our children may or may not turn out like. Just knowing that parenting comes along with such a heavy responsibility can seem quite daunting at times.

What has helped me in my mothering, is accepting that sometimes things just happen for a reason of their own, quite possibly unknown to me at the time. I feel that my children have chosen me to be their mother for individualistic reasons and to help them along their path of becoming who they are here to become. I guess I more consider myself their guide. I see a main characteristic of my mothering role as standing by my children through the good and the bad times, loving them deeply through it all. I try to be very real with my children and treat them with the same type of respect as I would an adult. I feel that children copy behavior from a very young age and the best way to achieve a respectful relationship is to model one. This can be so difficult at times, because we are all human, and we all make mistakes. This is why forgiving myself and allowing myself to be real, are key parts of parenting to me. If we allow ourselves room for the mistakes we make, not being too hard on ourselves, and remember to be real and honest with our children, we can achieve a very fulfilling parent child relationship.

Successful parenting starts with learning how to fully accept and love who you are, just the way you are, and realizing that you are the best parent for your child(ren).