Raising Parents

Our children are born into and grow up within conditions and circumstances that we as their parents do not consistently choose.

We find ourselves unable to control many areas of their lives.

There is, however, one constant and singular area where we do have substantial influence over the well- being of our child.

It is here, within this personal relationship that we make and hold with our child, where we have uncommon control.

This is the realm where no one but the parent will possess such distinct impact upon our child’s emotional welfare.

This is why we as parents are accountable for our contribution to the quality of the relationship between parent and child.

Every parent is entitled to, and faces, both an enormous opportunity and an extraordinary responsibility.

The questions we need to ask ourselves as we develop as parents during each stage of our lives together include these:

Are we filling our most fundamental of responsibilities to our child?

How do we recognize and reconcile the conflict of idealized child vs. real child? Acceptance? Resentment? Resignation? Perhaps all three.

Do we keep our role as authority, within the context of the boundaries of unconditional love vs. unconditional support for any and all behavior ?

Do we hold ourselves accountable to remain parents as we relate to our child, even as they have children ?

It is about asserting the authority of unconditional love.

These issues are among the ones we raise as we begin the discussion contained within the learning process we call Raising Parents.