As parents, our children are our most profound loves. But I believe I've mentioned before, the whole game is rigged. Almost the moment they're born you've gotta get your act together. And not just to take care of a dependent being (no stopping, no quitting time, duties owed forever and ever until you drop dead) but even more relevantly you must resist the urge to instrumentalize this being for your own emotional needs.
It's harder than it sounds.
Before I continue, I have to get some things out of the way. First, I am aware plenty of people don't have children. That's fine. I am also aware that sometimes parents/carers do not "fall in love" or bond with their children. It's not a guaranteed thing. I also understand that you can love a child without being their biological antecedent. I know, too, there are families that aren't composed of a parent-child situation at all. And finally: the default human experience isn't "family": some people find themselves without family at all and we need to remember that.
But billions of people have had the experience I'm talking about today, and I want to offer my thoughts.
How could I describe this experience? It is the near-abrupt emanation of a being that is almost entirely vulnerable, who like... you grew in your body, a person that you are suddenly responsible for twenty-four-seven three-hundred-and-sixty-five. You're on your own, asshole! Maybe you've got a partner to help, or extended family (I had the former, not so much the latter). Even with help, the hours are brutal, the labor is at times back-breaking, and if you're an at-home carer and/or a gender minority, you drop in the social esteem of society. It's hard, and hard in a multivalent way that literally never lets up for years and years.
But it's also bizarre and silly.
Not because there's anything wrong with children or anything demeaning about raising them, but it's bizarre and silly because of the profound ignorances you held up unto the moment they were born. Most everything you think you knew about parenting gets upended. You turn a sudden about-face on opinions you used to loudly toot through your megaphone. You find yourself deep in a love that you wish you could talk about, on and on and on, all days and every day. The fact that is a mundane miracle, doesn't make it any less a miracle.
It's a trip.
I'm many, many miles away from my oldest child, I'm hurtling passenger-side on the freeway and he's getting back from his birthday hike. But I have to write about this now, as it's on my heart.
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The thing is, as your child gets older you might think you "know" them but you know them less and less. You must begin to accept this immediately. You must erase any sense of "ownership" or pride, not because this construction or that emotion is wrong but because you risk your child a great harm when you think you built them, or that you're crafting them. A child is like this wild garden and you should care for it but don't ever think you're responsible for the magic.
Our children build their own inner lives and we will never fully know them. To resist that is to disrespect their dignity as a human being. But so many parents think they have a right to their child's story. Thus many adult children don't feel they can really be their authentic selves with their parents. They show up playing a part they don't really want to play, because they know deep down if they drew a boundary or if they lived as their authentic selves, their parent would respond poorly.
Too many adult children live that life.
I've always known as a parent I don't have a right to my children's lives nor any particular ownership--rather it is a privilege to be included.
Today, I am included in my kids' lives. I never take this for granted. This means every day I have to work as hard as any day I've been a parent. Not just for their sake but for my own. Without my children I am sure I would have cared passionately and worked hard, all those things. But without children, I wouldn't have been so humbled. My children aren't crafted from me precisely, but they are a version 2.0 because they develop strengths where they found me weak. It's iterative, it's didactic. It's alchemy!
Today I am so grateful for our oldest son because he brought a joy and purpose to my life unlike anything before. I'm also so impressed by the man he's become. He's set to graduate cum laude with his Marine and Coastal Sciences degree, this spring. He loves his field (which is most important), he is suited to his field, and the world needs him.
I get to see him in a couple days. For now, my heart is with him as I hurtle miles away from his heart. For now, I want to thank him for being here. He has a mind that I'm always eager to encounter. He has a beautiful body and he moves it in the world. The planet benefits from his presence.