Last week Scarlett (my almost-14-year old daughter … how on earth did that happen?) made a lovely observation about our parenting.
She said, “If we ask you to do something for us, you won’t always do it for us. But you’ll always help out if we need help.”
I said, “Sounds like we’re pretty good parents.”
Scarlett neither confirmed nor denied that assertion, but instead asked a surprisingly insightful question.
When did you decide to parent differently?
I said that me and her mum had actually made a decision not just to parent differently, but to live differently. To do marriage differently. Money differently. Family differently. Business differently. Health differently. Basically to do life differently.
I reckon it’s so easy to just do things the way our family / history / society etc expects us to, without ever really examining why. Especially the big things. Career, money, house, relationships … and yes … parenting.
And there’s magic in figuring out what you really want, how you want to live, and going for that.
