Outgrown.

A rhetorical question for the ages, a fear not often addressed. What a selfish motive must we have to overlook the very possibility that our children outgrow us.

Like a pair of pants on the basement, bathroom floor.  A reminder that they were too small, as well as the shower this morning unable to hold two people, her overused pants, unable to hold two buttcheeks. If you stare long enough at a pile of laundry, it becomes something. Mine became a realization that my time is expiring, if I let it. Not in terms of time because none of us know when that ends, but without a comparative measure could we know if our time is any more expired than anyone else, as in percentage complete. This thought was much more devastating than that. This thought was about her.
My daughter, close enough to three to tell people, yet lacking the full development that three year olds have. Certain characteristics, balance, physical and mental, ability to notice certain things, as gifted as we, and all parents like to think, she is still our little girl. For now.

What happens when one day her ability to rationalize, internalize, and recognize surpasses that of her parents? What happens when due to our own choices we get passed by a girl whom we sacrificed for her to have it better than her parents did, and for her to grow and learn to give it back to others? How does this look when she looks at her father one day, her noticing me, rather than the other way around? Now it is easy to sit and watch, observe. I see the patterns, know things she doesn't, yet. What happens where is all I know is what I know and she is able to see it a different, more efficient way. I mean, the only thing we adults grow into in our thoughts are not smarter thoughts, but more efficient in our own ways, it is the children that are open to any possibility, live life on pure faith.

Already I can see her mood, her behaviors, her abilities able to surpass mine, and I want that. Like a young Jedi, I want her to surpass me, my stringent standards of "good enough" and my weaknesses to become her own strong, empowered woman. I want her to be able to defeat me in a battle of wits, or have her common sense question my own. I want her humility to surpass my presentation and have her internalize other's needs as greater than hers.

The thing is, wants, like a Christmas list, aren't always fulfilled. However the faith that what she gets is what she needs means that her mom and I have to do our part to ensure that the environment available to her is one of growth, challenge, coping, love, and sacrifice. I cannot sit back idle while she continues to grow and expect her to grow. I cannot stay stuck without challenging myself to look outside the box, my personal realm of possibilities, and want her to do that? She will beat me to the punch, that much I am sure of, yet, what if I continue to keep the bar where it's at? Then there is no punch to beat, but a barrage of the same thing.

there is a certain beauty in consistency, however there is a challenge in growth. Beauty in the art of alteration, and there is something to be said for the sacrifice of old behaviors in a way to provide new ones to those we love.

Laundry, laying on the bathroom floor, technically the one I use the most, so it is often referred to as, "my bathroom floor," an idea, a reminder that today I looked to her. I watched my daughter a few times today in awe. In awe of her building her own train tracks, by her self, in the basement, bound and determined to finish. I watched as she fought her mom and I on going to take a nap, only to hold out almost two hours before crashing. I am always pleasantly shocked as she heads off to Sunday school grateful to go, and telling me to have a good service. The prayer tonight is for her, for your kids, for the kids I don't even know, that they can do this thing better than their parents. However, this doesn't happen by magic, but we must continue to put in our efforts each day.

Love means we challenge the children to prepare for a world that will not always show them the same.

God Bless.

My book, sold here. For the adult males or family members of males that know someone who struggles with body image disorder.