To the Parent Who Feels Lost,
You may feel like you lost so much of your identity in the moments of parenting a child. But I am here to tell you all that you gain as you courageously adjust to become a child’s everything.
You work the hardest you ever worked in your entire life. You grow closer in some relationships, and you relinquish others. You meet lifelong friends at the playground sandbox that you would have never met outside parenting. During the moments spent tending to your child while balancing a profession, a home, a marriage, and personal aspirations, you gain a profound since that hard work today will eventually reap tomorrow’s reward.
You gain the understanding of long, hard work without instant gratification and zero recognition outside your home.
You gain a love for your spouse or partner like no other, whose patience and tenderness left you speechless during the months of postpartum recovery and new parenting.
You learn the life giving resource of therapy.
You gain the understanding of new found forgiveness each morning when your baby did not remember the mistakes you made previously.
You gain a sense of strength that you never knew you were capable of each passing day.
You learn that seasons of parenting are truly temporary as you weaned your youngest. You watch your toddler confidently attend school and thrive in environments outside your home when a year prior he could not leave your side. After years of the baby not sleeping, you learn that babies do eventually sleep.
You gain an overpowering sense of gratitude for whose who had a hand in raising you. Yet you still really do not know how to say thank you. The greatest thank you decide you can give is truly leaning into parenting today. You commit to raising the next generation to love their children as wholeheartedly as you love and are loved.
So to the new parent who feels lost, you are a bit lost. That is OK.
No one learns everything in one day, and you will still be scratching your head about some things for years. But if you try your best to raise and love your children with love and care, you are doing it right.
