Our children are who they are

Last night while we were having a family dinner out, my daughter asked my husband and I if we try to live our lives through them?

“You mean do we live vicariously through you?” my husband asked.

“What does that mean?” she responded.

“Living our lives through you as you asked,” he answered.

“Yes,” she said.

And after we chatted about life and how fortunate they are to have parents that allow them to explore who they are without the influence of outside people telling us who they should be. Or drawing ideas about what our children should be based on another child’s life; I started really thinking about how important it is for us as parents to allow our children to live their lives. To make mistakes. To go down paths that may not be the paths we would have chosen for them. But paths they feel they need to explore.

As parents we have to be careful about taking over our children’s lives. Taking their identities from them and trying to make them into our own. We have to be careful to let our children be who they are meant to be. Want to be.  Destined to be. Because though they come through us. They are not us. We are the vessels through which they come to this planet. But from the moment they are born, they begin their walk independently from us. And we cannot and should not try to hamper them from becoming who they are. Because they already are.

I can see the importance of allowing my children to develop as individuals just by looking at them and listening to them. I have two very different children. Polar opposites actually. One that loves the limelight. The other who prefers to be behind the scenes. One who is totally creative, outgoing and artsy. Another who is reserved, scientifically minded and very logical. But yet they both came through me. Genes from my husband and me.  Yet they are so different from each other. Demonstrating just how much of an individual each one of us is including my children so why would I want to make them the same? Why would I want them to go down the same path when I see they are very different?

I look at my children and though sometimes I would like for them to take slightly different paths from the ones they seem to be going down, I know I am there only to guide them. Not coerce them. I am there to be an active participant in their lives. To hear their concerns. To help them to reach their own conclusions but I am not there to direct them. Sometimes finding the balance is so hard because we all want our children to have better experiences than we had.

We want them to be the best they can be. But what we have to remember is being the best they can be is not always what we consider to be the best.  To bear in mind that no matter what we do or what plans we have for them, they will always be who they are. And if we ride them too much to be something they are not, they will either crack, rebel or never speak to us again.

That’s why it is so important to spend time with our children. To get to know them and understand them as much as we can. And in doing so, we can be their best advocates for the lives they are meant to lead not the lives we want them to lead. And remembering always our children cannot be something they are not. They cannot be as creative as their friend. As athletic as their friend. As intelligent as their friend. As funny as their friend. The life and soul of the party as their friend. They can only be who they are.

And when we remember our children are who they are and allow them to be who they are, that’s when we give them the wings to fly as high and as far as they are meant to. Because then we understand our children are here to teach us, just as we are them, each one of us has an individual path here in this life and sometimes those paths intersect. And when they intersect as parent and child, that intersection is key to the growth of all of us.