Roots and Wings

Parenting is building a nest just to give our children somewhere from which to fly.

The best and worst part of parenting is watching your kids grow up. Watching them shed the skin of babyhood and take to their own two feet, seeing toddlerhood slide into the elementary years, witnessing the transition from kid to teen, marveling as they stand before you as first someone’s spouse, then someone’s parent. It's beautiful and awful, I tell you. And it's inevitable.

Not that we'd have it any other way. The natural order of things is for milestones to loom ahead and then zoom past, and for children to make their way towards the starting gate of "real" life that we call adulthood. When a child can't, or doesn't, follow that prescribed path, our throat tightens and we cast around for help: occupational therapists, speech professionals, nutritionists, whatever-- whomever-- might somehow make that steady arc of development a reality.

But the passing of time, the loss of the little person as they give way to the becoming of their new selves, well… it's bittersweet. Who among us has not spent a long moment in deep reflection after stumbling on a photo of a smaller, younger, sweeter version of one of our children? Who hasn't held up a tiny sweater that hasn't fit in months, or a stained blankie that was once our baby's everything and wondered, "How did it go so quickly?"

It's the nature of parenting. We love so completely, so utterly. We shape our lives around this role, we pour every good thing we can imagine into the souls entrusted to us. And then ...

We let go.

It's in stages, sure. Human parents do not oust their children from the nest in one brutal shove, unprepared. We invest hours, days, years into making sure that when it comes to it, we have done what we could with what we had. We have made our best effort. It won't be perfect, but then, what is?

Our children step away from us in increments, from the very moment they are placed in our arms. Those precious moments of togetherness? The very reason that they are so precious is our constant understanding that this, too, shall pass. The season of being under our wing, being in our home, is so, so short. You can hold on with both fists, you can refuse to concede the truth, but here it is: this child-- this person-- does not belong to you. Never did.

Our children are meant to fly.

The imagery of the Psalms says it all, doesn't it? Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. (Psalm 127) The purpose of an arrow is to be aimed, and set free to do the work set before it. Archers don't follow behind the arrows they have released into battle. They don't grab the arrow mid-flight, wrestle it back into the bow, and try again.

Archers trust that they practiced well, aimed true, and will see fruit.

So should we.

I can't tell you the point where your hands open and your role shifts from guidance to consultant. I can't tell you the moment when unsolicited advice becomes intrusive and unwanted. I have four adult children and I can tell you that the boundaries for each were set in different places, at different times. There is no formula. Different personalities, experiences, expectations, and circumstances make for different tipping points in the subtle relational transition game.

I recall pondering all of this as my family sat poised on the edge of a whole new season. Maybe it’s the same season you’re staring down as the graduation announcements arrive in the mail and the cap and gown need pressing. My daughter was the first to edge her toe over the invisible line that we've drawn around the hearts of our children. She was the first to be preparing to venture outside, away from the retreat we'd made of our home. It didn’t happen in one day, or even one year, she was eventually ready— our first. The first to be handed a diploma from our homeschool, the first to proclaim an intended vocation. First it was her… and then her sister. Then a brother. And another. Then degrees and weddings and babies.

I blinked, I remember saying to my husband. I blinked and they flew.

The roots we’ve given our children-- always more about what we poured in than what we’d left out-- will always be there. They will pull from a childhood that, we hope, has prepared them for many of the things that the world will throw at them. Not all. We can never send them out knowing all they need to know! For that, they will draw on a faith that is their own, that they have wrangled with, and not just eaten from our hands. What they chose to do with that is their own, a personal walk with the Holy Spirit that they can choose to cling to or reject. But, regardless, the roots... they have given way to wings. And like that, they have have become responsible for her own choices before the Lord.

And they fly. They do. It looks differently than I imagined. But what was that dream based on? Nothing solid, just glimmers of maybe mingled with my limited idea of what might suit them best. The reality is so much better, so much more challenging to my heart and yet so much more fulfilling to them. I’ve let go, yes. But I gave them roots. The wings are their own. I pray they use them well.

In Christ,

Heather