Skip to main content

My Promise

To my children:

I recently saw this sign...

"I am not your friend.  I am your parent.  I will stalk you, flip out on you, lecture, drive you insane, be your worst nightmare, and hunt you down when necessary because I love you and when you understand that I will know you're a responsible adult.  You will never find someone who loves, prays, cares, or worries about you more than me.  This is my promise to you."

At first glance, I thought I might agree, but then I read on.  The words that followed didn't settle.  You are little and, right now, I am not your friend.  On day, I hope to be and so I am making you a different promise.

I will give you the freedom to test your wings and the boundaries to keep you safe.   I will enforce constructive consequences that will help you better understand the choices you make.  I will listen to your fears, needs and desires.  I will treat you with respect, grace, and love always remembering that you are a work in progress just like your mom.  Though there will be seasons of life with more wrong than right, I will never quit trying to understand your perspective. 

When you are an adult, I pray that you will see me as a friend who loved you enough to let you become the best version of you.  I hope that I have helped you understand your strengths and your struggles and given you the tools to make the most of both.  I want you to look back on the those times of trial and know that I made tough decisions with your best interest in mind. 

I will spend the next 20 years treating you with the love and respect a friendship deserves, so that when the day comes, you will choose to be my friend. 

With Love,
Mom

Comments

  1. I agree! I don't like the "no one will ever love you more than me" bit. Seems like a setup from a needy, enmeshed mom. (I'd hate to marry into that). I think parents can say "No one will ever love you in the same way I do..."
    This is good stuff, Erin, and it makes me think you must have a lovely friendship with your parents (which I know you do). Your kids are lucky to have you for their mom.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is good Erin. Well thought out and well written. I love taking the time to be intentional NOW about parenting with the future in mind, thinking about what kind of adults we want these Littles to be. You're doing a great job. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dreams Take Time

I'm not someone to choose a word for my year or set out with any big aspirations for change.  Likely because I am a fair amount of lazy and avoid disappointment at all costs.  God knows that about me, so He tends to take care of the planning and usually by December I have realized what it is I was suppose to learn.  If not, he always lets me repeat the lesson.  He's real generous like that.   So, after spending 2017 stepping into youth ministry and feeling BRAVE I headed into 2018 like David after Goliath.  I mean, God was for sure using me for some giant situations! He had given me a passion that excited and inspired me in a way I had never before experienced. People around me noticed. I was ready to take on the world.   Then, slowly but surely, the path I envisioned started to fade.  The ways I intended to use my passion fell away and I was left with a dream that had no real path.  Now don't get me wrong, He was still using me.  I could see that even in the midst of the c

Not Nearly Enough

The urge to write is a fickle friend.  I can go months and months without a single word and then suddenly she yells so loudly, I can’t help but answer her call.  Come to think, it’s not all that different from parenting an introverted teenager.  So here I go……. Last week I text a friend and told her that I felt unqualified.   Not overwhelmed or stressed or over-committed, just heavy.   Like the weight of all the things that surround me are more than I could ever have the capacity to mend or relieve. Questions I can't answer, needs I can't meet, fears I can't comfort, wounds I can't heal.  The resources, gifts and wisdom I bring feel so insignificant.   Like a little boy with his sack lunch looking at a crowd of hungry people.    Almost instantly, I heard God speak to my heart “This is where I use you best.   When all you have is all I gave, that’s when I shine.” When the need is greater than I possess, that’s when He multiplies. When the call is greater than m