There's a certain context to share here, a
background
if you will, that goes beyond my experience of Girly Girl. While I
experience it acutely, poignantly,
privately,
personally
etc, in actuality there's nothing
private
or
personal
about it at all. It's just the natural love that
shows up
for parents in their relationships with their
children.
It gets to
the heart
of our experience of our
children.
Beyond that, it gets to
the heart
of our experience of each other.
My experience of Girly Girl has lasted thirty years. At the start
of its spectrum was a baby, a beautifully innocent,
miraculously
perfect, breathtakingly adorable baby. At the current end is
a fully mature, adult
woman who's now managing her own life
independent of me, succeeding in society, loved by friends and work
associates alike, and indeed respected by whomever she's in contact
with. It's a most wondrous thing to behold. How so,
Laurence?
As a baby, there were no guarantees the latter would be her future,
even if I'd figured out great parenting skills, no matter if I gave
her everything I had. I could only give it my best shot, then wait.
It was a wait for a
miracle
really. I mean, look: how can a delicate, beautifully fragile,
dependent baby human being ever become an
adult
master of life
in their own right in the
big,
bad, dangerous world? How can she be protected when I'm not there
to protect her, so that no harm becomes her? I was consumed by:
what can I do to ensure this lovely, adorable
child,
my baby, is equipped to
ride life's
wild waves?
Does she have what it takes? Will she discover her power? Will her
life be
effortless and easy,
ethical and moral? Will it have integrity? Oh, and:
will it
work?
That was nearly thirty years ago. Now, adult Girly Girl is
prosperous and successful. I can tell she's got what it takes. Her
life
works.
She's in a relationship that
works.
She's safe - without me protecting her. She's in great financial
shape. She has integrity. So my ideas are validated. But it's not a
validation coming from people saying "Well done
Laurence!"
as they pin medals on my chest. Nothing like that. It's a
validation coming
directly
from
Life itself.
And isn't
Life itself
the source
of our
children,
as well as our relationships with them, in the first place? See,
validations of ideas coming from
Life itself
are the profoundest types of validations there are to get, yes?
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