Parents have 15 to 18 years to train children for great lives, to face challenges, love others, and to serve their communities.
Moms and dads get almost two decades to coach whole living.
This is sufficient time to complete such training if it begins in the parents’ heads long before the child is born and if it begins immediately the child is born.
As I have written numerous times parenting ends. While this has gotten the ire of readers occasionally it is usually from those sold on the belief of “once a mother; always a mother.”
We do not stop being our children’s mother (or father) but our children inevitably exit childhood, which ideally, is also when parents end their parenting. You are still mother (or father) but mothering (and fathering) is done.
If a 40-year-old still needs or demands parenting something is amiss in at least one of the involved parties.
Actively teach your children from as young as possible to be independent of you.
“The day will come when you can do all this (cooking, cleaning, laundry, finances) on your own,” and, “you don’t need me nearly as much as you think you do,” and “look at how capable you are,” are wonderful things to tell your children.
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