Sometimes I wonder, why I did have kids?
Even before I was pregnant I knew that having children was a selfish act, trying to fulfill something within me. In the grocery store, passing parents and their screaming child, thinking time to go home. Hearing a parent scold their child thinking I would never do that. So quick to point out what they did wrong, and what I would do right.
The problem with that way of thinking (or should I say that kind of judging) is that eventually that narrative turned against me.
It’s easier to parent at home when no one is around. Where I openly laugh at my kids’ potty humor and let them hop from couch to couch with no strangers’ eyes shooting worried looks.
But I can’t keep up this charade. I can’t keep letting my children run free when we’re alone and try to tame them in front of others.
And I ask myself, what’s it gonna be? Am I going to love these children with wild abandon? Am I brave enough to honor their being wholly and fully – as they are – and not what society expects them to be? Will I nourish their freedom or will I stifle their roars? What will it be? Because I can’t have it both ways.
Well-behaved and fearful or wild and free.
What’ll it be?
Risking Delight 