This morning, my boy woke up, crawled over to my bed and climbed up to me as I was still sleeping. As usual, he laid on my chest quietly for a while before I would lazily and reluctantly open my eyes. He greeted me with a big smile and I gave him a big kiss on the cheek. Then he started telling me what he wanted to do for the day.
He went to childcare for the first time last week and today he was looking forward to going there again. His good friend who lives a street away from us goes to the same childcare as well. So he was happily telling me what he wants to play in the childcare in all his seriousness.
As a father, there is no greater satisfaction than seeing my boy looking forward to his day. This is such a beautiful phase of his life. Beautiful because he does not need to face the challenges and complications we have gotten ourselves into in our daily lives.
Beautiful because he does not need to live up the expectations from others. There are of course some rules and protocols to follow in the childcare but as a whole, they are not in conflict with or against his will and preferences.
It was at that point I mentally reminded myself to make sure that I as a parent do not try to mould him into a certain person I want to become. I hope I’d be smart enough to not get in the way of his path of development and journey of self-discovery about himself and his world.
Because if I do that, say when he is eight, ten or twelve years old, he will not wake up with the same excitement he did today. I think as parents, we must give them that space that they more than well deserve.
At the same time, as a parent and as a person, I must also strive to live the life I truly want to live. Steven Pressfield says, “Most of us have two lives. The life we life, and the unlived life within us. Between the two, stands Resistance.”
There is enough ‘Resistance’ already within each of us, stopping us from doing what we truly love to do in 
our lives. So, do not be that additional resistance to our kids’ lives, preventing them from living the lives the way they honestly and instinctively want to.
Stop saying, “I am doing it for my kids.”
I believe that in life, there is more to do for ourselves than for our kids.
And most of the time, believe it or not, if we do enough right things for ourselves, we would have done enough right things for our kids already. I feel this is better than always asking have I done enough for my kids. We all know what happens when there is too much of a good thing.
So, do not over do it for your kids. And start doing something for yourself today – for your kids’ sake!
