As a parent I sometimes feel that parenting can be quite hard. The responsibilities to provide, to educate, to give my kids the experiences that they deserve, to make life better for them, and to offer them the life that I did not have, more over the opportunities that I would have liked to have explored. Read that last line again, “ the opportunities that I would have liked to have explored.”
I find that my life is busy and tough, having to take the kids to all their activities each day, and I get no down time for myself. Yet when I look at life from their perspective I find that a child is having their equal share of life being hard. Right from growing pains, exploring their body that is constantly changing, the hormones shift, the adaptation to learning environments, the gazillion things to learn, the pressures of society, peers and family, and at the other end of the spectrum the need to create their own identity and figure out who they are and why they are here. This can be a very daunting task and this is how many and rather most children never grow up understanding who they are, leading to maladjusted adulthood.
All children want to become adults. Then as adults, we all want to become like children or at least reach for the innocence of childlike behaviors. This is the constant tug of war that we each have to face, trying to step out of the shadows of our parents and create our own mark in life, yet the safety and security of our childhood holding onto the coat tails of our parents is too great to let go. The child within is always battling the adult feelings as we attempt to grow up externally, rather as we fight to stay the same even for but a moment to live life and remind ourselves of who we are, what we are, and why we are here. Time is not standing still, and we get caught in its current, struggling to be either a child or an adult or its opposite and then losing ourselves in the precession.
Neither the child nor the adult behave authentically as we are constantly being told by media, by society, by peers and family to be some else based on someone ELSE’s value systems. As a child we are told to be brave and courageous and roar loudly like a lion. Well a lion knows who he is and behaves accordingly and then when we reach adulthood, we are told to be more quiet so as to not attract attention and not offend others with our opinions or voice. As a bird we are told to fly high with our dreams as children, only to be informed as adults that we cannot achieve those goals due to moral responsibilities or financial follies, or societal norms, and told to fly with limits under the clouds, lest we hurt ourselves soaring too close to the sun.
I find myself trying to give my kids the opportunities that I never had. Why? Because perhaps through their experiences I may get to live that which I missed out on as child. Yet I do not stop to ask if the child wants to explore these activities. They may do so out of obligation, and here begins the creation of the tug of rules and regulations and eventual resentments. Yet it is wise for each, the child and the parent to simply live their lives wholly and completely as they are to the best possible version of who they are.
The burden of being human is that we want to be divine and explore everything all at once despite the realization that we are mortal. We are asked to prioritize our limited time and resources in an infinitely abundant universe, and to make the most of our presence. This all is possible if we stay fully present in the moment and simply explore what is and not what we want it to be.
Life is like an ever flowing oceanic river and with each lap of the tide the experience changes. To bear witness to each tide without judgement is the greatest way that I know of how to explore life. There is no future, there is no past, for all exist within the framework of the mind. The child exists now, the adult also exists now within the same body in this time ( The child wants to be the future adult and the adult wants to be the child in the past). Witness both with love and gratitude and use that wisdom to let each live its own version of existence in its own time.
“ Don’t grow up it is a trap” is a lie for there is much wisdom in allowing what is happening to happen, and awaiting what is to happen with reverence. Growing up too quickly or too slowly, are both illusions in the moment of the present.
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I love you
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