DAY 5 – A PARENT’S HOPE

I am at a gathering of people to discuss what it is like to be a parent. The people come from every walk of life and are of every nationality, religion, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. The one thing that stands out above anything else is the universal love that parents have for their children.

From the moment a person finds out he or she will become a parent a sense of joy overcomes that future mother or father. There is an anticipation for the day their child will be born. Whether the baby will be a girl or boy doesn’t matter. The only thing that is of importance to all parents is to protect and care for this soon to be breathing and living human being.

Loving feelings and loving actions are common to all parents. It doesn’t matter whether a parent is a teenager with a newborn baby or in the eighties with grown up children who have their own children. It doesn’t matter if a parent is poor and living in unbearable conditions or is wealthy and living in twenty room mansions. It doesn’t matter if parents believe in God and are religious or don’t have those same beliefs. Loving one’s children has no age, group or other requirements and is an undeniable universal phenomenon.

While parents bring their children into this world with the hope for a better future they also know that their children will not have a smooth journey. The joyous moments will uplift their spirits but every human being will also have to deal with personal and societal issues that are extremely burdensome. Parents understand that giving advice and insights that only comes with experience is part of helping their children navigate the ups and downs that awaits every human being.

Parents everywhere envision their children growing into good human beings who are kind, considerate and respectful adults. They want for them a happy, productive and meaningful life no matter what stage of life their children are going through. To a parent, nothing is more important than this.

By the end of this event I now realize that a parent’s love for their children is universal and never diminishes even when their children reach their senior years.