Saturday, January 20, 2007

Parenting is Forever


Still no word from Mike. I don’t know how long it will be before we hear from him. I have some proof that he was selling pot and we will have to deal with that whenever he resurfaces. FASD is amazing. I told him that I was recording everything he did on the internet and he still was negotiating drug deals online.

I couldn’t sleep in very late this morning. Lots on my mind, lots to do. Every kid has issues that I need to deal with and that I feel I need to deal with in the best way I can, so that takes up a lot of my brain space. And then there is work on top of that, so I seldom have any time where I am not thinking, and sometimes that thinking keeps me awake.

I’m not trying to copy Cindy’s post title idea, but I did read her post called forever this morning, and it reminded me of when I was caught up in the idea of becoming a “forever” parent for my kids and what that might mean for them. I was thrilled with the idea of providing permanency and security. I looked at forever parenting from their point of view.

Now I am seeing that parenting is forever. Whether it is by birth or through adoption, parenting doesn’t stop when a child becomes an adult. it is a never ending challenge and, I would offer this: when you adopt children at an older age parenting is harder longer. We never have hopes of an empty nest. Even though on paper, any of our children SHOULD be able to live independently, I don’t know how many of them will really be able to. Lately I’m wondering if any of them will.

And getting them out of here really isn’t the goal -- it’s having them become contributing members of society. And I’m not sure what percentage will be able to do that.

So, where I used to see active parenting as ending when a child reaches adulthood, that dream is now dying. I see that active parenting continues on forever.

That reminds me. I need to call my mom.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry for your troubles with Mike.