It's Not About the Job.

My Kids Are Growing Up

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

You know something I’ve been thinking about?

My kids are growing up.

I know, that’s hardly breaking news. That’s what kids do. But nobody tells you that one day you’ll look at them and realize they’re no longer practicing to be adults—they actually are adults.

People post those videos online where parents say, “I still see my little boy,” or, “She’ll always be my little girl.” I used to smile at those videos and think they were a little sentimental.

Now I get it.

I still remember my son as the kid who needed help tying a tie, who asked me a hundred questions about how the world worked, and who somehow managed to leave every light in the house on. Today he’s a firefighter. He runs toward danger while everyone else is running away.

Am I proud of him? Absolutely.

But here’s the funny thing. If he had decided to become a welder—which, by the way, is what he studied in college—I would be just as proud.

The pride isn’t in the title on his business card.

It’s in the man he became.

He shows up. He works hard. He treats people with respect. He takes responsibility. He contributes more than he takes. Somewhere along the way, without me really noticing, he became the kind of person you want living next door.

As parents, we spend years worrying about grades, sports, colleges, careers, and whether they’re making the “right” choices. Then one day you realize those weren’t really the important questions.

The important question was never, “What will my child do?”

It was, “Who will my child become?”

When I look at my son, I don’t see a firefighter first. I see a good man.

And that’s enough.

Maybe that’s what parenting is all about. We spend nearly two decades trying to teach them everything we know, and then one day we stand back and realize they don’t need us to tell them what to do anymore.

Not because they stopped listening.

Because they learned.

That’s a strange feeling. It’s a little bittersweet. You miss the little kid they used to be, but you wouldn’t trade the adult they’ve become for anything.

I suppose that’s the deal we make as parents. We don’t raise children.

We raise adults.

And if we’re lucky, one day we look at them and think, “I’d be proud to know this person, even if they weren’t my son or daughter.”

That’s when you know you did something right.