PARENTING ISN'T REALLY ABOUT THE CHILD, IT IS ABOUT US...

What do I mean ?
Up to the age of about 24 we somehow think that adulthood is something to be reached and we have to achieve something to get there. Society encourages us to think like that: When you are five...When you are 12.....When you finish High School...When you have your degree, then....
In the meantime the word "if" slips in: If you have those shoes, then you'll be really happy. If you have your diploma, then you are a real adult. If you are married you can be really happy....
And we do all that, we try to reach those goals, because basically we are a very obedient species for if we weren't,  we wouldn't seriously consider, let alone partake in war as a viable solution to problem solving, would we?
Anyway, one day, after 'an-encounter-of-the-first-kind' we find ourselves to be a parent....aaaaahhh.....and everything gets turned upside down!

Career strategies don't seem to work when applied to new borns and the very young... and partners, well, it turns out that they can't be treated the same as employees unfortunately. Everything is messy.  And I think this is great !

Now we begin to discover that life is like a compost heap: there's a bucket full of 'scraps' every day to be thrown on top, every so often we turn the pile over and in between we wait patiently while nature does what nature does. And then, eh presto! after a while the end product is beautiful sweet smelling soil .....the  life we live is like that and we are like that soil, growing wiser and hopefully better people for the experience....Meanwhile children remind us of how it all started, what the basics are...

In terms of human psychology, we learn to accept, deal with, process, digest all the 'stuff' that is put on our plate every day or we don't. If we don't, we will get swamped by it. It's just not easy being an adult and there aren't always quick solutions to problems, while in the eyes of our (little) children we must appear like gods or magicians, all powerful; funny, isn't it?
When you get stuck and wonder what on earth to do next, tell anyone who wants something from you to "just wait, at least until I have finished my cuppa",  put up your feet and drink that cup of tea s-l-o-w-l-y......