"I LOVE YOU ENOUGH TO…"

Few things make hearts grow bigger and emotions rise than looking down at the face of a newborn who depends on you. Parenting is a major life choice and it leads individuals into enriching and challenging moments…some that are both at the same time.

But it’s important to realize what love is and what it’s not.

Most know what love feels like, but that feeling has to be connected to loving behavior to be love. You probably been told that others love you when it seems clear that love isn’t involved. No where is this more obvious than in the parenting experience and that’s understandable because loving actions with a growing child are different each day.

Kids start out small and totally helpless. They need someone to provide sustenence and shelter them from harsh winds. They need a lot and they yell loudly when this need is felt. As a parent, you want to provide even when you’re tearing your hair out. At some point, though, you have to specifically decide what not to provide.

This is when it gets confusing.

I love you enough to…not clean up your messes.” This means all the messes–from literal ones to friendship issues to financial challenges when your child is an adult. You cleaned up after him when he was two and he spilled his milk, but you expected his fourteen year old self to clean up his own soda spills, right? When he was six and some kid bullied him at school, you marched up there and talked to the principal, but when he’s twenty-six and he’s having trouble in his work colleagues, its really his ball game.

The same goes for over-extending his credit when he’s thirty-six and in major credit card debt. It gets blurrier at this point, though. You still want to help, but there are many factors to consider before deciding what actually is help and what’s not. If you can do so without endangering your own retirement funds, you may offer to help. Just remember–help doesn’t always bring gratitude…or change in the behavior that got your child into trouble in the first place. Sometimes, the helpee resents needing the helper–which feels wrong when you’re the helper, but it is what it is.

Your children can resent needing, being helpless or strapped. This isn’t what you were going for when you agreed to help.

“I love you enough…to let you learn the hard lessons.” No one, even kids, like to have their faces rubbed in their screw-ups. If your adult children suffer relationship failure, it isn’t loving or helpful to point out that you never liked the ex. You may be privately glad she’s out of a bad situation, but you don’t get to gloat. You may not feel like you’re celebrating their struggles, but it can seem like this if you aren’t very, very careful what you say. Your kids won’t thank you for saying “I told you so” anymore than you liked it when your mother said it to you.

You may have the urge to point out the lesson to be learned, in hopes that your kid doesn’t come back here, but you need to resist unless specifically asked–and even then, think before answering.

“I love you enough to…let you fail.” This is perhaps the hardest part about parenting. Failure teaches lessons that are never forgotten. Let your kids have these profound moments, even though it hurts you to watch them hurt. We all fail. We try something that doesn’t work. We get into relationships that should work, but don’t.

Let your children get the lessons that come with life challenges. When they screw up, they need to clean up to realize that they can. You aren’t always going to be there to fix the problems. Your kids need to know that they’re alright without you. They need to fail in order to learn that they can succeed. It’s hard to watch, but this is love.

If your children don’t fail, they don’t learn.