‘A little tree never grows in the shadow of a big tree’
‘A little tree never grows in the shadow of a big tree’
Heard that today from my dad as we were speaking after having a few drinks.
He was talking about my sister and my mom.
How my mom has been on top of her, calling her multiple times a day and stressing out the rest of the family to make sure my sister is ok.
She’s not letting go.
I get it.
My sister will always be a kid in her mind.
But she has to let go.
She has to let her little tree thrive.
Whether she gets hit with a hurricane or thrives in the sunlight, that’s not up to my mom.
It’s up to the little one to decide.
This is the biggest struggle of parents.
How do you let go?
How can you let go of your kids making their own decisions knowing they’re going to screw up?
It’s brutal.
Many parents will never accept it.
They’ll never let their kids be themselves.
They parent them from their own perspective of how they grew up.
Newsflash - the 2020s are very different than the 90s.
You have to let kids be kids.
You have to let the little trees flourish, even if that means they wilt in the hurricane.
That’s not your decision.
You have to trust that you’ve done the best you can to raise them and then you have to release them to the world.
Let them thrive.
Let them leave your shadow.
Let them be the thriving smaller trees.
Because if you’ve done a good enough job, watered them and exposed them to enough sunlight, they could even grow higher than you.
Isn’t that what you want?
So let them be.
Let them screw up and let them shine.
Let them be themselves, no matter how good or bad it may seem to you.
Your job is to always be there for them, without judgment, trying to guide them along the way.
But you have to let go.
You have to let them be.
You have to let them grow into their own shadow.
You have to let them get out of your own shadow.
They’re living their life, not you.
Let them grow higher than the shadow of your big tree.
.svg)
