Balance.

Balance is something I took for granted.  Today I get on a swing at the park and feel a sense of dizzyness.  Where did that come from?

“Daddy, I want to go on this one.” My daughter points at a ride that looks like a big octopus with undulating arms.  Ten minutes later we both stumble off the ride queasy.  We both remember that hot August day. A little later, she throws a fit “I want mama, not you!”  No mama here.  She slaps me in the face, and then does it again. I slap her back hard. She begins to cry.  I’d never hit her before and felt bad, but I’m not her friend. I’m her father.

Balance.  Raising kids.

Am I doing a good job as a parent?  I think so, I note the self-absorbed ones who all but neglect their kids, and the ones who dedicate their lives to their children.  The wives of two friends in particular – both dote on their daughters, showering (or smothering) them with constant attention, expensive things and scheduling every hour. Perhaps this has to do with perceptions and expectations of wealth and class.  Yet, one doesn’t need to be a marriage counselor to see the correlation between unhappy, or at least distant marriages, and supermom behavior. Lives out of balance.  Lives seeking something to love. Did they ever have dreams or goals beyond motherhood?  Don’t they see the sense of oversized entitlement they’ve created in their children?

Living through/for your kids feels like a way to fill a hole in your own life. I can feel the urge to do that as well – to make parenthood my identity.  I can see the trap miles away and I avoid it.

I have only a few regrets in my life, one of them … one I see coming may just be never demonstrating to my daughters what a real honest “I love you” relationship really looks like.  They see affection between a man and a woman on TV and assume its fiction.  And that could very well be my biggest failing as a parent.