Children Don't Belong To Us

The first time I heard this, my mind jumped three stores through the roof. "Our children don't belong to us"?

How can they not? I was thinking about all my friends who struggled so much to get pregnant, going through so many procedures, spending so much money, sometimes affecting their relationship, because it turned into a time table, rather than a loving couple's time. You carry that child for 9 months, give or take, fighting with your body who, sometimes, it feels like he's trying to torture you with all the morning sickness - by the way, their not only in the morning 🥴 - the child choosing all the painful places to sit on - like your bladder, or stomach, or your spine - you're going through labor - which, if you are lucky, you're getting off in a few hours - you're going through everything imaginable and unimaginable to raise that child, give them a proper education, and trying to make sure they have everything they need, and they are not missing anything, and, at the end of everything, that child doesn't belong to us?

Then whom do they belong to? - To Themselves.

Read that again, and read it well, because that is the pure truth.

And I understood this after listening to some true stories lately, and observing how some of my friends think of their children and their future together.

A couple of parents had trouble with money. The wife went to another country to work, made money to send home, but she also fell in love with someone else and left her husband and their child for the new life. The father raised the child, dedicating himself completely to the child's education, care and love, giving all his time, and saying he didn't want to date anyone, because he wanted to make sure his daughter has everything he needs from him. He raised her for 13 years. The child didn't want anything to do with her mother which she felt abandoned her. Until one day when her mother called her to the country she was now living in, and the daughter moved there, and the father was left alone.

A friend was planning a divorce, thinking she will move into a new town with her child. In every fight the child and the father had, she was always on the boy's side, no matter if he was wrong or wright. She was always talking about the sacrifices she made and will make for her son, the love she had for him, and how she saw her future life - the child was always nearby in the story. So I've asked if she knows that one day her child will make a life of his own.

- "Yes", she said.
- "And maybe that life might be far from you".
- "He won't go far, he loves me too much, he always says he never wants to leave me."
- "Did you love your parents so much that you told them, and truly believed it, that you never want to leave them?"
- "Yes" - she was now in doubt.
- "And yet you moved to another town, far away from them, seeing each other on holidays, when that was possible. And not because you stopped loving them, but because you made your own life, following your own course".

Just like we didn't belong to our parents, and we always knew better, and we wanted to be left alone to try things, and fail on our own, and make our own mistakes, or right choices, the same happens with our children. From the moment we give birth to them, they enter their own path. A path which might involve us, or not.

Your life is not your children. Your life is your life. It belongs to you. Your children are the people you love like no one else. And letting them have their own life, and their own course, doesn't mean you love them any less. Choosing to date after break up, choosing to do something that is good for you, doesn't mean you love them any less. It only means that you are living your life too.

Children will leave. Sooner or later, they will go on their way. Love them while you have them next to you, but also live your life.The best way to make your children happy is for them to see you happy. If you are happy, you are balanced, and able to take care of them, and you will be an example for them, far more than just by telling them what they should do, but by actually showing them what they should do.



Photo credit: pixabay


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