Why we're parents ...

Why am I a parent? I mean this in a general way. Why are any of us parents?

Do you ever ask yourself this question while you’re lecturing your child about leaving dirty socks on the floor? Why do we commit our lives to the pursuit of raising children? It’s a lot of work!

Maybe if we keep our eye on the big picture, we’ll better understand the small, messy, complicated picture that we deal with on a daily basis. Here’s my philosophical, over-thought explanation for why we do what we do.

We’re here as tour guides to help our children acclimate to the world.

It’s not that we’re wise or knowledgeable about a lot of things. We’re bumbling through life just like everyone else. It’s just that we’ve been here for a long time and we generally know the terrain. We know the best restaurants, which seedy areas to avoid and how to say “Where’s the bathroom?” when you really need to go.

Valuable information for a newbie to the world.

It’s like when you go to another country and a tour guide tells you, “Don’t drink the water, you’ll get sick.” That information saves you a lot of tummy aches.

So every time we nag about the socks left on the living room floor, we’re really telling our children, “In this world, people like cleanliness.” “You’ll be better accepted if you know how to pick up after yourself.”

Okay, we’ve figured that out.

Here’s the hard part. Why are we parents once our children have fully acclimated to the world? What’s our role then?

Parents often try to act like tour guides long after their children already know the surroundings.

“Don’t drink the water. It’ll make you sick,” we say.

“I know, Mom,” our children answer with an eye roll.

The problem is that we’re kind of confused. We don’t understand why we’re parents anymore. If we’re not passing along information, what good are we?

Here’s my theory. We’re here as confidence boosts for our children.

Once our children are fully acclimated to the world, they become part of the massive, homogenized crowd that is society. They fit in. They blend in, you could say. And in doing so, they often forget all the reasons that they stand out from the crowd.

It’s kind of heartbreaking to think that a stranger would pass our child on the street and not realize that they’re the sweetest, cutest, most brilliant person in the world.

You’ve heard the saying, “A face only a mother would love”?

We’re here to remind our children that no one has ever meant more to anyone than they did to us when they first showed their tiny, wrinkled faces in the world. Seeing them for the first time was like meeting Madonna, Elvis and Ghandi all at once. Our children are like rock stars to us.

We think they’re magnificent.

Who else but a parent will go on a shopping spree just because you’re coming for a visit? Who else can sense when you desperately need a care package?

Children need parents in the world to remind them of their uniqueness. We’re parents because we know that our children are special. What better reason is there?