Roots and Wings

The best and worst part of parenting is watching your kids grow up. Watching them shed the skin of babyhood and take to their own two feet, seeing toddlerhood  slide into the elementary years, witnessing the transition from kid to teen. It’s beautiful and awful, I tell you. And it’s inveitable.

Not that we’d have it any other way. The natural order of things is for milestones to loom ahead and then zoom past, and for children to make their way towards the starting gate of “real” life that we call adulthood. When a child can’t, or doesn’t, follow that prescribed path, our throat tightens and we cast around for help: occupational therapists, speech professionals, nutritionists, whatever– whomever— might somehow make that steady arc of development a reality.

But the passing of time, the losing of one little person as they give way to the becoming of their new selves, well … it’s bittersweet. Who among us has not spent a long moment in deep reflection after stumbling on a photo of a smaller, younger, sweeter version of one of our kids? Who hasn’t held up a tiny sweater that hasn’t fit in months, or a stained blankie that was once our baby’s everything and wondered, “How did it go so quickly?”

It’s the nature of this parenting thing. We love so completely, so utterly. We shape our lives around this role, we pour every good thing we can imagine into the souls entrusted to us. And then …

We let go.

It’s in stages, sure. Human parents do not oust their children from the nest in one brutal shove, unprepared. We invest hours, days, years into making sure that when it comes to it, we have done what we could with what we had. We have made our best effort. It won’t be perfect, but then, what is?

Our children step away from us in increments, from the very moment they are placed in our arms. Those precious moments of togetherness? The very reason that they are so precious is our constant understanding that this, too, shall pass. The season of being under our wing, even in our home, is so, so short. You can hold on with both fists, you can refuse to concede the truth, but here it is: this child– this person— does not belong to you. Never did.

Our children are meant to fly.

The imagery of the Psalms says it all, doesn’t it? Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. The purpose of an arrow is to be aimed, and set free to do the work set before it. Archers don’t follow behind the arrows they have released into battle. They don’t grab the arrow mid-flight, wrestle it back into the nock, and try again.

Archers trust that they practiced well, aimed true, and will see fruit.

So should we.

I can’t tell you the point where your hands open and your role shifts from guidance to consultant. I can’t tell you the moment when unsolicited advice becomes intrusive and unwanted. None of my children have crossed that line yet. Even then, I think that there is no set formula. Different personalities, experiences, expectations, and circumstances make for different tipping points in the subtle relational transition game.

I ponder all of this as my family sits poised on the edge of a whole new season. Mary Hannah is the first to edge her toe over the invisible line that we’ve drawn around the hearts of our children. She is the first to be preparing to venture outside, away from the retreat we’ve made of our home. Although it won’t happen today, or even this year, she will be ready soon enough.

The roots we have given her– always more about what we pour in than what we’ve left out– will always be there. She will pull from a childhood that, we hope, has prepared her for all of the things that the world will throw at her. She will draw on a faith that is her own, that she has wrangled with, and not just eaten from our hands. But the roots … they will give way to wings. And like that, she will have become responsible for her own choices before the Lord.

She will fly.

 

 

I link up posts with these wonderful hosts: Diamonds in the Rough, Life in a Breakdown, Sunday Best Showcase, Teach Beside Me, Finishing Strong, Mama Moment Monday, The Modest Mom, Mama Moments Mondays, Monday’s Musings,Making Your Home Sing Monday, Playdates at the Wellspring, A Pinch of Joy, Titus 2sday, Titus 2 Tuesday, Growing Homemakers, Babies & Beyond, Teaching What is Good, Missional Call, Essential Things, Create With Joy, Hope in Every Season, For the Kids Fridays,  Preschool Creations, Pin Me Party, Learn & Link, Frugal Homeschool Friday, Let’s Homeschool High School!