6:59 PM and you’re working through an epic post-bath meltdown.
7:37 AM and tears are flowing about going to school and what’s in the lunchbox and which shoes to wear.
1:44 PM and any hope for your child to nap is diminishing as the crying gets louder.
August 19 and today is the day she leaves for college.
In the moment, parenting is so deeply personal.
This is my kid. These are our experiences. No one else is here to manage this meltdown. No one else feels our morning madness. No one else is here on the couch wishing the kid would just take a nap. No one else is sending my kid off to college.
Sure, this is all true, but don’t forget everyone else. All the other parents and kids and families working through their own versions of this stuff.
Someone, somewhere is managing a post-bath time meltdown right now. And every morning parents across your city are wrangling kids out the door to school. Every August, tons of parents grieve the next step of parenting with a kid at college.
Just like optimism, this perspective doesn’t solve all your problems.
But right now, this very moment, someone else is in it too.
Gratefully Dad 