Spouse and Kids

I started this post over a year ago and have let it sit idle. Not sure what the point is; just some observations, none of them original thoughts, just stuff I’ve picked up over the years –

I’ve been enjoying Ann’s comments on Facebook about how Alice is mimicking her. Alice cooks in her play kitchen, washes dishes, puts on jewelry, and pretends she is packing gear for a trip in the car. Perhaps that is what prompted these thoughts over a year ago:

Getting married and having kids is an experience of conversion. You convert yourself into someone else; not who you are, but who you’d like to be. You try to become the person you wish you were, a person who is better than you are when left to your own worst nature. That is who you become, or at least try to become. You become this better person because you love your spouse, and you love your kids, and they both deserve someone better than you. But you are what they have, so you have to become that better person they deserve.

Kids are near-perfect mirrors of their parents. They do and say everything you do and say. So you see yourself in them, and they acquire the traits you hate most about yourself. So you have to change yourself so your kids don’t become you. And that is why you sometimes don’t like your kids, because they’ve become you, including your worst habits, in spite of your best efforts.

Also, day by day they express their expectations of you, and these expectations are not small. Blinded by love, your spouse thinks you are a good and admirable person. (Perhaps they don’t know the real you yet.) Blinded by faith and love, your kids and spouse think you are god, or at least god-like. You try to be right about all things, consistent in applying all the rules, living by all the rules, eating some of everything, and behaving appropriately at all times.

Parenting - an impossible job and the only job I ever loved.