My oldest inches tentatively out of her room.
I’m resting in bed after bedtime and writing some thoughts on my phone.
I look up.
“I need a drink of water,” she says.
“Go, take one,” I respond.
She peeks over my shoulder.
“What are you writing, Mommy?”
“I’m just writing something. Go back to bed.”
It’s been a long day.
Thankfully, she’s an obedient one.
“Good night, Mommy.”
“Good night, sweetie. I love you.”
As she walks away, it hits me.
She didn’t ask me what I’m doing.
She knows what I’m doing.
She knows that I’m writing.
She has only started learning to read so she couldn’t actually read it.
But soon she will.
My babies are growing up. They are entering a stage where their personalities will be developing into the people they will be for the rest of their lives. They are watching, listening, and soon they will be reading, soaking in every word, interaction and experience to try and make sense of the world that they live in.
I don’t feel prepared for this.
It’s one thing to raise toddlers, who basically need food, sleep, and a generous dose of love.
But now it’s getting more complex.
Now they are beginning to learn new skills, to ask deeper questions about life, and to process greater amounts of information from the world around them.
And it will be up to me to raise them to be successful, happy, and G-d fearing human beings in this turbulent and confusing world.
G-d help me.
I’m still in my twenties.
Granted, almost done but even so.
I’ve hardly even figured out my own place in the world.
And we all know how much those first two decades of our lives affect the way we turn out.
It’s no wonder so many people in our society don’t consider themselves adequate to raise children.
Maybe the wonder is why more of us don’t feel the same.
The truth is, most of us probably do ask ourselves sometimes. What was I thinking just having children like this? How am I supposed to know what to do?
On other days, it may go a step further, and we say to ourselves, I just can’t do this. I don’t have the strength. I don’t know what to do. I’m not good enough.
We know we should teach our children to be respectful, kind, and confident.
But what if we aren’t always respectful ourselves? What if sometimes we are selfish, and doubt ourselves?
What if, in so many other ways, we are just not up to role modeling what we want our children to be?
How can we teach our children to be something that we aren’t ourselves?
I contemplate this thought as I write it.
I think I have found my answer.
Of course, we cannot teach our children to be something that we aren’t ourselves.
But nor do we have to.
We were not created to be angels.
We are only human beings: flawed, unreliable, and complicated beings. We have good sides to our character and not such good ones. We must struggle to resist our selfish urges and live more altruistically. But we aren’t expected to always succeed.
In fact, we are expected to fail.
And again, and again.
The only requirement is that we get up and keep trying.
Our children are just the same. And that is perfectly okay.
We are okay the way we are. We are worthy of the life we are given each day, and our children are worthy of theirs, no matter how imperfectly we behave, and if we aren’t the best role models all the time.
We are not expected to know everything, or even to fulfill everything we know to be right.
Our job is only to keep trying, learning and to do the best that we can.
It’s all part of the greater plan.