Circle of life

It's amazing how when we are growing up, we always swear that we will never raise our kids the way our parents were raising us. There are always those things that they did to us that we would never do to our kids.

Now that I'm a Mom, it's not so easy. Here are these little souls that to a large extent are going to be what they are because of how they were raised. That to me is pretty scary stuff. I know that a childs personality plays a part of who they are as well, but I get to play a huge part in how that personality gets moulded and I don't feel at all qualified to do that.

A lot of what we say and do (or even don't do) will influence what kind of adults they are going to be. It's also difficult to not pin our hopes and dreams on them. My twins do particularly well academically and when they do bring home a not so good result it's so hard not to act disappointed in front of them. Where does one draw the line between pushing them but not pushing too hard? I want them to learn that's important to work hard but I don't want them to turn around one day and say that I put them under a lot of pressure.

It's also so difficult to accept our children for who they are and not who we want them to be. Reece likes collecting junk! He doesn't think it is though. Old bones dug out from the garden ( he says they are dinosaur bones, I say they are someone's old dead and buried dog), carboard box constructions and bits of paper with pictures stuck all over them, form part of the mess in his room. But is it mess or just who is? I've been ruthless with his room in the past, getting in there and throwing all the 'junk' away, pretty heartless if I think about it now. That's because I like everything to be orderly and tidy, but that's not how Reece is. He has now started packing a plastic crate with all his special possesions in(the bones included), so that when he leaves home he can take it all with him. I've decided that it's time for me to let him be who he is, even if it means all the 'junk' that goes with it, before I turn him into someone he doesn't want to be.

I hope and pray that even when I do make mistakes with my kids, the stuff I've managed to do right will far outway the mistakes, and that my young men will turn out ok. That they will see where I went wrong and have the courage to change it with their kids.