Dr. Julie’s Meaningful Morsel … The Greatest Labor of Love a Parent Can Provide
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“Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy.” ~Robert A. Heinlein
As a child born to teen parents, I had no choice but to learn how to fend for myself. It was called survival. And while difficult, it instilled in me the absolute ability to be self-sufficient, resilient, capable and, as a result, confident.
As a mature mother of two children, my greatest challenge is to help develop within my daughters the same set of qualities, albeit under a very different set of circumstances.
“Please load your dishes into the dishwasher. Have you done your laundry yet? How are you going to pay for that new shirt that you want (and don’t really need)?” are very difficult questions, especially when I can and WANT to do these things for my children. But I KNOW that, if I do, my daughters will never develop the survival qualities which I have come to cherish.
As a mother (and as a psychologist!), I remind myself DAILY that, the greatest labor of love a parent can provide is to NOT do too much for their kids. For your child’s future depends on their ability to develop within them self, the qualities which will ultimately help them to succeed.
