It's Tough Being a Parent

The Advantage you have to your kids at every point is that you have already suffered through in your own life most of the things you then have to watch them suffer through as well. But watching all this happen can be very difficult. And this doesn't stop after they are 18 or 21 for most people either. I'm in all my kids lives to a greater or lesser degree even though they are 15 to 37 years old (biological kids) and 38 to 40 (step kids) and 25 to 35 (God Daughters). So, it is hard to just get out of the way and let them live their lives even after they are 18 or older. You want them to be happy and to have a good life and to get a better or more useful education that you did. So, for example, even though I have about 8 years of college with majors of Computer Data Processing and Computer Programming in several languages, and Anthropology and psychology and sociology and philosophy, I never finished any college degree simply because I was trying to stay married and to raise my kids and considered their well being more important than any degree I might get.

So, when my son got his bachelor's degree in nursing it was a very big deal because it made him the first person in my biological family (Mom, Dad and Me or my parents generation since my Grandfather became a minister around 1900 to get a college degree. Last night I went to my son's wife's graduation where she also got a Bachelor of Science in Nursing as well. So, even though my step-daughter also is a lawyer and my step son has a degree in Sociology and is a Fire Captain, all these degrees make me feel validified as a long term parent of many biological, step children and God children who I raised fully or partially to adulthood.

For example, my son's wife is someone he met early on in the nursing program at an upper division level and they both helped each other become nurses and through the very difficult and strenuous nursing program. I have never met a nurse who said the nursing program was a breeze. Making it through always is accompanied by a lot of suffering by the nursing candidates for a variety of reasons. So, in some ways becoming a nurse is a lot like going to war as a soldier.

One of the hardest things in regard to being a parent of an adult child is to know when to keep one's mouth shut. (at least for me). I tend to be very direct and not subtle in how I communicate which sometimes is a good thing and sometimes not. But, as a parent mostly you just don't want your kids to make any of the mistakes that you or your friends or people you know might have made. So, in the end all we can do is our best. It's tough being a Good parent.