Do you ever have those moments when life\u2019s deepest lessons suddenly click and you say to yourself \u201cAhhhh, now I get it!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The older I get the more I seem to have those \u201cAhhhh\u2026\u201d moments where things I have struggled for years to understand suddenly become completely clear and I think to myself \u201cDang I wish I would have gotten that years ago\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Today I had one of those moments regarding Parenthood.\u00a0 Ah, yes, parenthood, the hardest job on the planet:\u00a0 The job where you give your heart and soul and every waking moment to taking care of their every need 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It\u2019s also the scariest job on the planet:\u00a0 The job where you lay awake at night wondering if you are doing a good enough job to teach your kids to be good members of society someday.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s also the most infuriating job at times:\u00a0 The job where you can\u2019t seem to win a negotiation, you can\u2019t seem to ever be cool enough, you can\u2019t figure out whether they want you to be there to hug them goodbye in front of the schoolyard or if they will be mortified and embarrassed if you do.\u00a0 It\u2019s also the most depressing job at times:\u00a0 When after all the years of struggling to raise them they finally reach an age where you can\u2019t wait to hang out with them, only to find out they would much rather hang out with their friends than their parents.<\/p>\n
Without question, being a parent can be a tough job.\u00a0 And it was in one of those tough moments today that I had my \u201cAhhh, now I get it\u201d life lessons hit me.<\/p>\n
As a kid I thought parents just didn\u2019t get it.\u00a0 Then as an adult I thought, kids just don\u2019t get it.\u00a0 Today I realized, both of those statements are true. Parents DO live in a constant state of \u201cnot getting it\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 As parents we can\u2019t get how kids could be so oblivious to how much we love them and how much we do for them and how much we would sacrifice for them.\u00a0 But as kids it would literally be impossible for the kid to get it, kids CAN\u2019T get it, because the truth is that no one could ever truly appreciate exactly how deep a parents love goes until they, themselves, have been an actual parent.\u00a0 I know I didn\u2019t get it until I became one and then I stopped and went, \u201cDang, that is how my parents were feeling when I acted like that\u201d, or \u201cOh, now I see why my dad or mom got upset with me for behaving like that\u201d, or \u201cOuch\u2026.did I ever make my parents feel like that??\u201d\u00a0 And in those moments, I finally got it. I got what it was like to be the parents:\u00a0 worrying, loving, sacrificing, hoping that you are doing it all right, while constantly feeling like you are doing it all wrong.\u00a0 Then hoping that your child appreciates everything you are trying to do.\u00a0 But they can\u2019t.\u00a0 Not the way you want them to.\u00a0 At least not yet.\u00a0 \u00a0Because they have not yet experienced what it means to be in your shoes \u2013to be the parent.<\/p>\n
So you love them.\u00a0 At times you endure them.\u00a0 You always hug them.\u00a0 And you wait for the day to finally come when they will have their \u201cAhhh, now I get it\u201d moment because they are finally a parent themselves.\u00a0 And when that day comes know that they will appreciate you in ways you never imagined possible.\u00a0 They will be grateful for everything you ever did for them and they will be sorry for all the times they caused you angst.<\/p>\n
And to my own parents I would say, \u201cTHANK YOU\u201d and \u201cHoly cow I am sorry for ever causing you stress or hurt or frustration, forgive me for my teenage years\u2026.okay and even a few of the early adult years\u2026You are the best parents ever and I am lucky to have you as mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s lesson:\u00a0 Be patient with your children and hang on to the fact that someday they will appreciate you the way you want them to\u2026and for us parents be grateful to our parents and let them know how much they mean to you, heaven knows they deserve to hear that.<\/p>\n
~Amy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you ever have those moments when life\u2019s deepest lessons suddenly click and you say to yourself \u201cAhhhh, now I get it!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The older I get the more I seem to have those \u201cAhhhh\u2026\u201d moments where things I have struggled for years to understand suddenly become completely clear and I think to myself \u201cDang I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[501,500,999,240,1343,2557,51,996,641,743,189,1679,65,1744,1685,180,451,103,598,232,64,35,990,138,415,1224,1769,1770,2559,1096,1668,2560,2558,1439,2561,489,238,260,78,173,2562],"class_list":["post-3967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-appreciate","tag-appreciation","tag-child","tag-children","tag-cool","tag-dad","tag-family","tag-father","tag-feelings","tag-forgive","tag-friends","tag-frustration","tag-gratitude","tag-grow-up","tag-grown-up","tag-happy","tag-heart","tag-hurt","tag-job","tag-lessons","tag-life","tag-love","tag-mom","tag-mother","tag-motherhood","tag-negotiation","tag-parent","tag-parenthood","tag-parents","tag-sacrifice","tag-sad","tag-sorry","tag-soul","tag-struggle","tag-teenage","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-thanks","tag-time","tag-worry","tag-worrying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3968,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967\/revisions\/3968"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}