Parenting...Most Important, yet Most Difficult!!

If there is one thing for certain in life...being a parent is by far the most difficult task we are challenged with in my opinion.  And not only is it the most difficult, but it is also the single most important job in the world without pay and no guaranteed return on investment.  I would laugh, but to tell you the truth, it is just not funny because it is so important and stressful from the time they are born until well...you die.  Not to sound so morbid on my first blog in a month, but I have been knee deep in parenting, and holy WOW...it is nonstop, high speed, no breaks, and stress to the nth degree!

But hey, at least I know for a fact I am not alone.  The problems are often vastly different depending on age and the issues at hand.  Difficulty of the parenting problems often slide on a scale of slight irritation to OMG I might as well toss myself off the bridge!  What I have determined is we, as parents, are all in the thick of it everyday, but the severity rolls up and down like a roller coaster without that final air brake sound which signifies the ride is over.  Sometimes it is fun, and we are laughing like a wild hyena with a huge smile on our faces...then a few short seconds later we are screaming at the top of our lungs in fear, horror and dismay as we free fall down the steepest hill only to go back up another and then WHOOSH, down again before even the chance to catch our breath!  Oh, you already know it, parenting...we love our kids to death, and want to ship them off to boarding school all within the same hour!!!  And what about self doubt, regrets and the famous line, "if only I'd have known..."?

We all face different "stuff" for lack of better terms as parents.  Some endure physical limitations for their children which can entail a lifetime of special care around the clock.  Other parents travel down the path of learning or processing disorders, autistic spectrum, mental illness, emotional distress due to abuse or trauma of some sort and the list could go on and on.  Then we have the more common issues like attitude, sassy mouth, defiance, promiscuity, alcohol or drug usage, threatening to run away, which can heap on top of some of the above mentioned issues.  You get the point, parenting is SO difficult, we have no manual with clear cut do this if...or don't do this if...or press reset should X,Y or Z happens... We constantly are second guessing every decision we make from which daycare center to what college, and a whole mess of every day fly by the seat of your pants decisions we make off the cuff.  Why in the world did we get into this parenting business in the first place?

WE LOVE OUR KIDS!!! I suppose if we didn't love them so much we wouldn't care if we were doing it correctly or not.  Love, the positive four letter word, not the ones we mumble under our breath when things don't go quite as we had planned it as a parent.  We all make mistakes as parents, our parents did, we will, and our kids will one day make mistakes as parents of our grand kids!!! Parenting a newborn who doesn't sleep and screams 24/7 leaves you feeling helpless, but so does parenting a teenager who can't see the boy she throws herself all over has no respect for her, and the parent who watches their adult son throw his career and family aside due to addiction.  Parenting never gets easier is what I have decided...only different! What else can you do once you have taken the plunge and become a parent? You can't give them back or walk away...parental hearts don't work that way.  We love them, support them, train them as best we know how, pray really REALLY hard, then smile and just move on :)