Parents Are Mirrors

+++ title = “09” date = 2019 +++

It’s not just a pride thing, though pride has a lot to do with it.

No, it’s more primal than that. A few months after my son was born, I was talking to another parent with a 20 year old daughter. The way that she was expressing her affection and admiration of her daughter sounded exactly like the way I expressed affection and admiration of my own child. 20 years later, she was still just as in love.

“I get it now,” I told her. “All parents walk around with admiration for their child bubbling up. Like low key, all day, and no one knows it except other parents.”

Get a parent talking about their child and they’ll go on for quite some time. Out come the photos, the videos, the artwork from daycare…

All of this so that our child can thrive. Because what children need most is safety, structure, and for someone to see perfection in what others see as just another ordinary individual. They need someone to remind them that they’re messy and perfect individuals, and that we embrace their particular mess.

Hell, we all need someone who does that. And certainly there are some parents who are ashamed or fed up with their children. Some parents who have internal issues to deal with, or hard conversations to have.

We think our kids are awesome partially because we made them, but also because it’s a biological mechanisms that allows us to give our kids what they really need. We see the best in them, and we act as a mirror to reflect that goodness back onto our children.

This goes for anyone you interact with, child or not… if you haven’t found the best in them, you haven’t looked hard enough.