No one can really prepare a parent for what to expect as you raise your kids. Sure, there are books and parent groups and mom conversations. However, every person has their own personality and every family its own dynamics.
The influence of social media adds in a whole other layer of confusion and comparison. It’s so easy in the trenches of parenting and the second guessing of related decisions to wonder what the end result will be. The unsettling answer is this: we will never really know.
So we do our best, trying to shape these human beings (sobering when you actually recognize that thought) into their best selves. We hope that they have somehow listened to something we said or caught onto something we modeled, intentionally or not, which will result in fruit demonstrating the best of humanity.
Sometimes you witness it and sometimes you don’t. Once, my husband and I went to a conference for one of my high school aged children expecting to hear a somewhat unremarkeable report . Since academics came easy to him, we didn’t really worry too much about the 5 minute slot we were given. But the teacher’s comment was not what I expected. “Your son is a wonderful human being.” Umm…there is no GPA that can top that comment. Isn’t that what all parents want? However that looks?
It’s so easy to get bogged down in the arguments and growing pains of the relationships between us as parents and the teen/young adult years. Our longing for their fulfillment and long term happiness anchors our hearts. But, as we also know, they are humans on the way. Just as we all are.
But that doesn’t prevent us from getting glimpses into the life giving things they have absorbed in the midst.
Watching and hearing my young adult children recognize their obligation to other human companions in this earthly residence guts me. I am beyond awed to witness them show compassion to another human being. Particularly, individuals that many in the world deem unworthy of mercy.
When they sacrifice time, energy, and money to love their neighbor, I am thankful. They see themselves connected to the rest of humanity. They recognize they have a sacred obligation to the life of someone else. They remind me that the world is still full of hope.
So in the middle of what can seem like the most hopeless and exhausting parenting season, don’t give up. Glimpses of the beauty in this world that is shaping them will appear. Sometimes it will appear when you least expect it.
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