Parenting – the ultimate adventure in paying it forward
When you become a parent, either by nature or nurture, you wipe its butt just like your parent wiped yours. We feed the child, clothe them and teach them by our actions, watching as the milestones pass. We kiss boo boos, worry about them, lose sleep and hope for their future. We follow in the footsteps of every parent, not just our own. The actions we remember as perceived parenting missteps from our own childhood, we’re sure to do differently if we can resist the pull of history and genetics which, at times, might be too strong.
No handbooks come with a new baby. They should. Every piece of advice ever given should come with each new child as downloadable content, straight to your brain. Kind of like Neo learned Kung Fu in the Matrix. Wouldn’t that be awesome? All of the advice, expertise and experience of those much wiser than ourselves accessible and at our fingertips.
But it’s not like that. We fumble along and we do our best with what we have. We strive to make our children’s lives better than ours have been, to give them more than we had and to make them smile. A child’s smile is a wonderful reward.
| An awesome smile |
| An awesome birthday party pic |
| Children laughing at a puppet show |
