Most parents probably come to the deep realization that what their child is is, in large part, a mirror of who they as people actually are. I am naturally resistant to this, but I think that the truth has to be faced (at some point and better now than......later, right?) that our children only 'are' what they have learned to 'be'.
Yeah sure. Children are there own entities, that's for sure, but more than that even they are what they have learned--what they see in action.
Overall, I feel that this truth is not so much designed to make us feel bad about what we have become as much as it is to humble us in such a way that there is no escaping the fact: just because we are 20-40 years older does not mean that we have 'figured it all out'. It is designed to show us that the work never ends as long as we are living and breathing. We are beings that are in a constant state of evolutionary progress and flux. The fact is that this is true even if we have personally decided recently or long ago to hang up the gloves of change. It doesn't matter. Evolution, life, God--whatever you want to call that Universal Intelligence is still asking us for real time input and engagement.
We cannot be dis-engaged, unless we are no longer breathing. End of story.
Life is love. Life is change. Life is engagement. Life is now. Life is growing, adapting and changing based on what is asked of us. We cannot silence the question and nor would we want to if we realized in all of our wisdom what it would mean to do so.
We are alive and we are living and this entails putting ourselves at risk of being wrong, of being corrected. It demands vulnerability and susceptibility. It means that the armor of iron has no place and that vulnerability is our lifeline if we choose to be available, vibrant and alive. Really, what other viable choice could there be?
We get led away from this truth by the challenges that we face in life. Life can be hard and brash at times. Pain has taught us to protect ourselves and be ready to throw up the shields at the slightest wind of conflict. While this may be understandable, it isn't the most life-afirming response.
Children bring us back. They require the vulnerability that seems to be so easily oxidized by the harsh vapors of some of life's experiences. They require the tenderness, openness, availability and vulnerability that we all want and need. They bring us back to ourselves.