Karen Joy Fowler said: “All parents want an impossible life for their children – happy beginning, happy middle, happy ending. No plot of any kind. What uninteresting people would result if parents got their way.”
I watch the blue jays push their babies out of the nest. I watch the bear fight with her child, wrestling with it, pinning it to the ground, doing it again and again until the baby fights back. As a parent I do not push my baby out of the nest, I gently nudge her, allowing her time to get her wings. I don’t wrestle her to the ground, pushing her to fight with me. I snuggle with her and stroke her hair.
If we shelter our children too much, they won’t be able to handle life once they are on their own. I know this and yet I do my best to wrap her in cotton and keep her safe. I love her with every fiber of my being and that love makes it hard for me to let her struggle.
Life happens anyway. Friendship, love, heart break. Getting what she wants and realizing she doesn’t want it, not getting what she wants, getting something she really wants and being thrilled. Life happens for her parents, too. She is not as a casual observer, she is a participant. We struggle, we succeed, we embrace the cycles, we fight the cycles, we have emotions. Disappointment and failure come even as I try to stop them. Without my help, my daughter becomes more interesting, more resilient, more capable, and more of the adult she is designed to be.
I did not get the impossible life for my child, I got something better.