Back in Business!!!

To all of my loyal blog viewers, I must apologize for the time gap since my last post. As I had mentioned in the Little Monsters post our family took a two week holiday, which was wonderful by the way, and when we got home there were some extended family issues that we needed to deal with. Those issues combined with full time jobs and raising monkey girl and the little dude, left little time for anything extra-curricular. With that said, these recent experiences (post-holiday) have given me the inspiration for the following post - please note that this is a more serious post than what I have previously written and I promise that my humour and sunshine are still present and will return in next week's post...

Being a parent is a funny thing. It is the one job that you have for an infinite amount of time, whether you are good at it or not. I have seen bumper stickers and t-shirts that say "I didn't choose my parents", and while that saying is funny and cheeky (and the people with the t-shirts and bumper stickers probably put them on in jest) it is also very true.

A child cannot "fire" their parents for doing a bad job. At best they can make a decision to do the job differently when the time comes, and in a less rosy scenario they can rebel like a fiend and take a negative path in their own life. As parents, we choose what kind of experience our children will have and the responsibility does not end when our children leave home, a parent-child relationship is the truest form of 'til death do us part that there is. Even the parents who leave their children have this responsibility because that decision to leave, regardless of how well-founded, will impact the rest of their child's life in a profound way (negative or positive).

Though I realize that there are exceptions to every rule, I think that for the most part children love their parents unconditionally and vice versa. I have been very fortunate in my life to have parents who have loved and supported me and my three siblings and continue to do so as we forge ahead in the "real world" as adults with lives and families of our own. We are truly blessed. Coming from this type of functionally dysfunctional (seems like an oxymoron but it is oddly accurate in the case of my family) background I have lived with a certain expectation of how a family is supposed to work and have tried, with my husband's support, to give my own children the same type of security within our family.

Recently, however, I have been witness to a sad situation where the roles of parent and child have been reversed - out of necessity - and the parent is having a hard time accepting the unconditional love of their child, unfortunately the result has been a lot of pain and suffering for everyone involved.

The details of the whos and whats in this story are not important, but rather the lessons that can be learned. This is what I have learned from the experience:

1. Love your children, and let them love you back because when it is all said and done that is what matters.
2. We don't get to choose our parents, or our children for that matter, but we are a part of them (it goes both ways) and therefore we need to try our best to let the part that we give be the best we have to offer.
3. Never forget that the decisions you make have a ripple effect - you are not alone in your happiness, sadness, sickness or accomplishments - so always consider the impact of your decisions on the people that you love (and who love you)

Elbert Hubbard once said that the love we give is the only love we keep - never stop giving your love away because it is always worthwhile, even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.

Well enough of my soapbox preachiness ....

Coming soon - some roses and sunshine from a revitalized supermom (I promise)!!