Love and Acceptance

When David and I were about to become parents, we had many discussions on what things were most important to instill in the lives our children.  Most of these conversations centered around values, the things we wanted to teach them, the kind of parents we wanted to be, the activities and things we wanted to do with our children, what is important to us, what mistakes we hoped we didn't make, etc. For me and the way my mind works I needed to take all these things and simplify them into a broad statement or two.  I remember telling David I wanted to sum it up almost like a mission statement.  My mind was always working like I was a manager leading a business and group of people - and actually it still does.  I want things to make sense and for expectations to be vividly clear for everyone.  So while we didn't come up with a "mission statement" exactly we came up with two core concepts.  The first of these is that we always want our children to know that they are loved and accepted by us unconditionally.  The second is that we agreed our most important role as the parents of Dylan and Zoe is to do the best job we can to instill them with strong, good characters and souls.  We felt this was huge!   What a major task we have before us!!! 

I feel like a child who knows that they are unconditionally loved and accepted no matter what will have a stronger sense of security and confidence as they are in this world.  I want Dylan and Zoe to know that no matter what mistakes, decisions they make, life choices, etc that I will always be here to love them and accept them for the unique people that they are.  While I may scold them, discipline them, be disappointed at times, I want them to know that nothing could ever make my love for them diminish.  However, I also know I'm human and our emotions can get the best of us.  I also know that I'm still dealing with toddlers so this task is pretty easy now. 

So now we know what are visions are for our kids and why those are what they are.  But the biggest, most important task is knowing how do we execute on them?  The art of execution on this is larger than life and requires daily efforts. I'm continually trying to fill my brain with knowledge on how to execute.  Whoever said parenting wasn't easy, really said an understatement, didn't they?

So I'm off on my journey to show Dylan and Zoe each day that they are unconditionally loved and accepted.  But one of the most amazing things right now is that Dylan and Zoe both fully accept me and love me unconditionally!  When I am away from them and come back after a very short period of time, they squeal for joys and jump up into my arms.  Dylan will tell me he missed me.  When I discipline them, the first thing they want to do is to hug me and have me hold them.  I always reinforce that I love them and explain why they were disciplined.  I don't know how much of that they understand right now, but it's amazing how much they love me regardless.  When I play with them, they don't care what I play, they light up like Christmas trees because I'm doing something with them.  Again, I know this is all subject to change as they get older and the judgment of me as a parent sets in.  But for today, I've really learned that I can learn a lot from my toddlers on how to teach them how much I unconditionally love them!

And thankfully I've also got the help of a dear husband and father and a wonderful God to partner with me on this. Both who have continually shown me unconditional love and acceptance and made me a better person.