Whose accomplishment is this?

One of my kids celebrated a birthday this week – a yearly occurrence 3 times over in this house. As always, the birthday prompted a quiet, personal journey for me, back to the actual birth day of the kid.

If I were given an opportunity to relive a week of days in my life, three of the days I’d choose would be the ones when my children made their first appearance. Pushing my babies into the world was the most physically demanding thing I have ever done – it was also the most rewarding. I have never fallen in love so completely, so intensely, so quickly, as when I looked into the scrunched, newly born faces of each of my children.

I love being a mother – I actually think that’s the reason I was put on this earth. My three children are my greatest accomplishments. That said, I don’t think I get to take a bow for anything other than keeping them alive so they could step forth and do the accomplishing themselves. As parents we sign up to do the dirty work – the diapers, the dinners – we are obliged to set our children up to succeed. The succeeding is up to them.

I am so proud of the people my children grew up to be. They are all so different from each other, uniquely wired and original. Although I believe my husband and I encouraged this individuality, I don’t think we can take any bows for this either. All three of these kids came to us pre-wired. They arrived with a personality all their own.

What we did was steer them towards their best selves – sort of pointed them in a direction. If they veered off course we nudged them back on. We experimented with a variety of extra-curricular activities until we found one where they were comfortable and could shine. I think this shining business is important – a person has to learn about winning as well as loosing (sometimes people forget that).

I believe we are all born with something we can do easily and well – as a parent I think it’s important to help a child find that thing. All kids are put in a variety of things that they have to struggle with – school introduces challenges on a daily basis. One of our kids was a natural student – she reveled in rising to the academic challenge. The other two found academia a chore, they excelled in other areas.  They have all become successful following their passions  they developed their own super powers, used their creativity and moxie to forge their own paths

All three of them were introduced to things they had to struggle to achieve and things which came naturally to them. They all developed great work ethics, they all became gracious. They did all the ‘becoming and developing’ themselves.

My husband and I took our parenting adventure seriously but given the sense of humor each of our children developed, I’m certain we had a lot of fun while we did. These kids are their own accomplishment – and I am so proud of each of them. I’m proud to be their mom.