The title of this short….thing, could easily also be Fathers Who Raised Daughters as Objects; or Fathers Who Raised Sons with No Self Awareness; or Mothers Who Wounded Daughters with their Lacking.
It’s just a note really, for all parents. Be good. Be Compassionate, Be kind. Be a parent– teach, guide, learn build, allow. Don’t be a friend, find your own friends. Be a parent.
But mostly, Raise a human.
Don’t raise sons and daughters. Don’t raise people walking the world with burdens of hurt and malformed ideas and opinions of who they are and how they are. Don’t lace your child’s shoes with your fear, and pour your malice and hurt in their sippy cup.
Raise a human who knows that cleaning the house, isn’t to please mother– its to learn how to clean a house.
Raise a human who recognizes that your parental view of them, is just an opinion and no one knows them like they know themselves.
Raise a human who makes mistakes and than has to fix them.
Raise a resilient human who falls down, cries it out, and knows how to get up again.
Raise a human who knows how to say “No” to you and also “Yes” to life.
Raise a human who comes not “from” you, but “through” you.
And when the day comes that human leaves you? Know that the human isn’t leaving you. They are seeking themselves.
Your job as a human parent is to let them. And to return to yourself.
- Disclosure- I am not a parent. But I am a human in this world.
cirque de la nuit 