From my daughter's bedside: Terms and conditions

I used to write these more often, but over the last six months or so my daughter has been sleeping pretty well. Tonight however, she woke up at 3am calling for Daddy.

As annoying as she can be, she is also very sweet and thoughtful, which makes it hard to stay annoyed for long, no matter how tired I am.

She is growing up fast and sometimes I feel that I am missing it as life and life's pressures pull resources this way and that. At the same time, I also know that I am doing the best I can in the conditions I have at this time. Doing better is an option though, if I can improve myself or change the conditions.

I try to do both.

Improving myself is probably the hardest because I have the tendency to put more weight on the conditions, even though I know they go hand in hand. Improving the conditions I do actively and for likely too long, it has been about resource acquisition.

When it was just me I was capable of going without, but with a family that is not my call to make as they shouldn't have to be constrained by my limitations. They of course are though, just as my hands were tied by my own upbringing.

Times move on though and while I am a product of my past, I am not incapable of redirecting my future past, the one yet to live and put behind me. I feel that having a memory of what was is both a hindrance and help in life as while it allows for lessons learned, too much attachment will mean that experiences points of control, as if that was the only experience and only lesson possible to learn.

It is an interesting position as while we feel that what we experience qualifies our knowledge, we don't consider how we experience our experiences. Our attitude in the moment matters as it is part of the conditions and therefore, the lessons learned and the value of the experience is going to be directly affected by the mind in the moment.

A beautiful sunset loses its magic when viewed with a mind filled with anger, autumn leaves received as a gift from a child lose their charm in a tired mind.

When my daughter wakes in the middle of the night and I sit by her bedside, tired and knowing that tomorrow is another day of work and responsibility, I try to remember my attitude.

One day she will not call for me and I will not be needed to sing her to sleep. One day she will no longer fall over and want me to kiss her knee and blow on it to make it better.

If I do my job as a father well, one day she will not need me at all.

Parenting is making me obsolete to the person I care for the most in this world. A strange experience for sure, but if not careful, it is easy to forget what one is doing and seek for attachment instead, and that changes the conditions for her.

As a parent I will remember these nights, but she as my daughter need not as she owes nothing to this experience nor to me. Parents tend to think their children owe them for all they have done to raise them, but that means they enter into the world already indebted and forced down a path they never had a choice to take, to a place they never wanted to go.

The conditions of childhood are what they are, but understanding that there is no debt to the parent means to be free to walk a different path. As a parent all of the investment into children is a loss from the start, because they never signed on to carry the burden and have no obligation to pay it back. My daughter will never owe me anything, yet I always owe her my best.

The terms and conditions of parenting.

Taraz
[a Steem original ]