Echoes.

Being a parent is hard.
I know everyone says that a lot and I can assure you that no matter how many times you say it, it’s true every single time.

There’s no greater love than that for a parent and a child.  I could like quite easily without my husband, though I love him quite a bit, but living without Abbey would be another ball of wax completely.
That being said, there is no greater pain or fear than that that comes along with parenting.

You worry if you’re spending enough time with them.
If you’re spending enough of the right time with them.
If your punishments fit the crime.
What to do if they don’t.
If you’re a single parent you wonder why you are always the only one punishing the child.
Why you are stuck with all of the responsibility and yet the child seems to appreciate the fun times with their other parent with a more exuberant joy than those with you because there is never any punishment.
You worry about the influences at home, the outside influences, the lack of influences, the lack of motivation.
You worry that you’re pushing too hard, being too soft a spot for them to land on when they fall and you worry about not being there when they need you the most.
Or them not being able to tell you that they need you.

You want to slay the dragons without being the dragon.
You want to teach them without shoving the knowledge and lessons into their head.

And when all of these worries take place every second of every day, well, then congrats – you’re a parent.

And it’s hard.
It hurts.  Hurts so incredibly much when they try so hard for a goal they don’t reach. 
It hurts when they fight with their friends.
It hurts when they fight with you and tell their friends what a monster you are.
It hurts when they tell the other parent stories to keep from accepting responsibility for their own actions – which then throws you right back into the tumultuous merry-go-round of ‘what do I do about this?!’
It hurts when their heart hurts.
It hurts when the parent/child togetherness time is a drag, as it so often begins to be in their teenage years.

I’ve had broken hearts and I’ve been a parent and I can tell you this.
There is no greater capacity for love and pain than that which parents carry around with them.
And there is nothing else on this planet that is quite as worth it.
Or that can bring you as much happiness.

We’re struggling right now, Abbey and I.
I want her to take responsibility without feeling useless.
I want her to close her mouth and open her ears so the need for attitude and arguments with friends and teachers and adults alike disappears.
I want her to stop telling her stepmother and father tales about the situations that she finds herself in.
I want to not have to be the bad guy all of the time because I’m the only adult.

If that child only had one iota of an inkling of how much love I have for her – how often I think of her – how awesome a kid I think she is, even when she’s hard-headed and dramatic.
If she knew all of the good things I wish for her… I have to hope that it would make a difference in the outcome of all of this.
I have to hope that she’d choose what was right for her instead of what is easier and more fun at the moment.
Or choosing what has less consequences.

If there is anything I’ve learned it’s that the right thing to do is generally the toughest.
Tough love.
Hurts to receive.  Hurts a helluva lot more to give.