Last Night

My daughter cried.  

She curled into my arms and cried, waves of tears and emotion rocking her body.  

My heart cried with her and for her as I attempted to explain all the gain and the fun that awaits.  

She didn’t want to hear about it.  She just needed and wanted to cry.

“what about what I want?” and “I am not…” and I like it how it is.”  And “Daddy doesn’t even know me.”

Tears, emotions, anxiety, fear…

I sat holding her; holding her so tightly and letting her cry.

I like to believe that parents strive to push their own desires and wants asides to care for their children.  A child isn’t a piece of meat to be fought over by two starving dogs just as it isn’t an entity that is debated on paper  as if an independent variable that doesn’t fit into the analysis.  

Being a parent, I thought, was about considering the emotions and the child first and foremost.

But there is so much more that goes into being a parent.  As adults we often lose track of the child and the emotions that they are feeling as a result of our own actions.  We can get caught in an agenda or in our own lives or adult relationships, and the child… well, we think we are doing what is best for the child because that is often exactly what we want to believe.  

Then there are the differences in parenting styles.  What one parents sees as best another parent disregards thinking that their ideas are better.  There is no right or wrong, there is only… a way forward and the belief that it will all work out for the child in the middle.  

Last night, as my daughter cried into her dog and my chest, I considered the options that I now have and the possible ways forward.  With all these options in mind – what is truly the best way forward for my daughter?