A Message To My Children

My Children, I have overstepped my bounds.

I have taken responsibility for who you are, when what you needed was for me to take responsibility for who I am.

I thought that if you were a success, that it meant I had succeeded. What I need is to succeed… at being me. I am a woman – a whole person with dreams and passions and a life to live – a woman who is lucky enough to have you for a child, but I am not only a mother.

My life is mine. Your life is yours. I understand that now. Please, forgive me for the confusion the old way has created for all of us. I was mistaken when I convinced us both that your life – your education and ambition and dreams, or at least the desire that must fuel them – were mine to craft.

It is neither my job, nor within my power to make you BE… anything. I am not an artist with clay, molding you to suit my desires. The clay is in your hands. My job as your mother is to enable you, to support you, to guide you, to encourage you. While I take that piece of who I am very, very seriously… your life is not ultimately mine to live.

You, and I, need you to be in charge of you. It is your job to craft you into the person you want to be. You are the artist. Your power, your potential, your life… is in your hands. You must find that fire within, that desire to thrive as the perfectly imperfect person that you were created to be.

Do what must be done to feed your spirit, to keep the fire burning… and I will do the same for me.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/codependency-sucks-happy-moms-day.html#ixzz1Lj43xKx9