Ask any parent, and they will tell you that the hardest job they have is raising their children.
It starts when they are babies and can’t talk, but you have to figure out if they are crying because they are hungry, tired, have gas, are cutting a tooth, or have some other random, life-threatening problem that came up when you googled “why is my baby crying?”.
Then they become toddlers. Still no talking. Just lots of yelling and grunting in the midst of near-death experiences with stairs, electric cords, and strange dogs.
Finally, they can talk and you think it’s all golden from here on out. Then they don’t stop talking, or they say mean things like”You’re the worst mom in the world!” because you won’t let them spend the night at the house of the new kid at school, whom you have never met, but apparently has an “awesome gun collection and gets to watch any R-rated movie he can find on Netflix!!”
And, I don’t have teenagers, but I have heard that the first time you send your child out in a car alone, with a cell phone that rings constantly, your hair immediately turns completely grey.
But there are precious times that your children are perfect; when they are safe, protected from almost every possible life problem, and completely beautiful:
It’s when they are asleep.
In every stage of parenting, there is the blissful moment when you peek in your child’s room, hear their gentle breathing, and gaze on their peaceful face, and you know everything is okay right now.
Every day, we are doing the hardest, best part of parenting. We teach them by example how to deal with life, remind them that our love is unconditional, and learn together how to laugh and live and love together.
On the hard days, though, we are all just trying to make it to bedtime without one of us requiring a trip to the emergency room, undergoing a psychologically damaging experience, or crashing the car through the garage door.
But every day that ends with the reward of peaceful, sleeping heads in a blessing. And we parents lay our own heads down knowing that tomorrow is full of new mercies and opportunities to love them again, before this season fades into the next and these children of ours have become parents themselves….