On Growing Up...

This is a thing that you will soon have to become accustomed to. As our children grow up, we find ourselves more and more alone again and forgetting that we once (as they do right now) craved that independence. We once desired to be free and on our own, untethered by our parents - even sometimes our friends - all in the name of discovering who we were without those external forces. Try to remember as you long for the security of the knowledge that your children cling to you, that they do still cling to you despite their proximity or lack thereof. They are your children. They carry you with them everywhere they go and your good parenting accompanies them always. They will disobey and stretch their limits for it is natural that we all must discover for ourselves what the consequences of making a mistake are, but they will in time return to the wisdom you have imparted, recognizing that your teaching, however uncool it may have sounded at one time, was sound and proper; and they will someday pass it on to their own children with a little extra perspective of their own...and that is what growing up really is.