Love your kids. Go ALL IN on the time you have with them!
But…
Don’t stop going ALL IN on yourself, too…
Your marriage, relationships with friends and family, inner strength, joys, passions, and dreams. Don’t take your foot off the pedal where your health, happiness, and wholeness are now. Yes, being a mom is the most important, precious role you will play in this life.
But…
It is still YOUR life.
Your kids will grow up.
They will build their own lives.
Their once-overflowing laundry bins will be empty.
Their beds will remain made.
Their rooms turned into guest rooms, or that office you’ve always wanted.
They will forge new relationships.
There will be new loves in their lives.
They will move to another state or another country.
And Mom, though special and loved, will become less present in their lives and minds.
You will then be face-to-face with yourself.
The days are no longer filled for you but by you.
This is when you can no longer disguise an unhappy marriage or an unhappy heart.
This is when a mom either sinks into depression or soars into her own new life.
This is when a mom gives her kids the greatest gift she can – permission to move into their own lives.
So.. LEAD
Time has changed things.
Now, it is you who must go to them.
It is you who must respect their new lives, their careers and pursuits, their wives or husbands, their roles as parents, themselves.
Take the road trip, book the flight and hotel- go visit them in their worlds, without demanding they cater to yours.
Love on them. Love on the people they love.
Dance at their weddings, or recognize they will find love on their timeline- not yours.
Rock their babies for them so they can go out on a date night.
Make sure they know your home is their home, and there is always a pair of loving arms ready to embrace them there.
And they will come, from time to time, and they will soak up that love from their mom, just like they used to.
They will laugh in wonder at the stories of your adventures and at your jokes, and your joy.
And then- they will leave again, secure and happy in the knowledge that their mom is happy.
And you will miss them.
And that- is okay.
—
Barb Allen is a speaker, award-winning author, Gold Star Wife, and co-founder of the Great American Syndicate. Follow Barbara Allen on Instagram at @barballenspeaks
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