Parenting is very hard. Keeping your kids safe. Keeping them fed. Keeping them in the best schools, making sure they get good grades in those schools. We have to do all this as we navigate a world where Murphy’s Law is real, where bills have to get paid, where we have our own crap to deal with that no one is going to handle for us.
In that sense, parenting is an impossible job with impossible expectations. Yet in another, very real sense, being a parent is actually about the easiest job in the world.
Because what do they really need? What is really demanded of you? That you love them. That you accept them. That you support and encourage them.
Nothing—literally nothing short of death—can stop you from that. In fact, if you do it right while you’re here, those feelings can transcend death too. And yet so many of us struggle with these simple tasks, don’t we? We’re short with them. We have unfair expectations. We prioritize the wrong stuff. We let things get between us and that love.
That should stop today. We can be great parents right here and right now. No matter what’s happening in the world, no matter what our other responsibilities are, loving our kids is the easiest, simplest thing in the world.
Accept them. Full stop. Cheer for them. Be their biggest fan. Let them know these things are all that matter to you. Not later, not conditionally, not reluctantly “because this is hard for me,” but completely and utterly.
It’s the simplest thing in the world. And as custodians of the next generation, it is the only thing in the world that matters.