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Child

When we choose to bring another human being into the world, we inherit a profound responsibility. Children do not ask for this experience; we deliver them here and owe them our best. 

We all come from a unique parenting and life experience; what we know of family dynamics and values stems primarily from our upbringing and our role models; "our best" holds a deeply personal interpretation. Some have experienced a childhood enriched with wonder, strong family bonds and a sense of security and well being. With this foundation, the possibilities for giving "our best" to our children seem limitless. Others may have faced physical and/or emotional deprivation, abandonment or cataclysm. These early experiences leave deeply imbedded imprints that may direct us, even beyond our will, to behaviors that negatively affect our parenting inclinations. As much as we intellectually understand a damaged past, we may pass it on, disaffecting our offspring. If we choose to improve upon the impact our early lives had on us, we must work diligently and daily to alter unwanted, ingrained behaviors.

I went from the arms of my family to those of my husband at the tender age of twenty. My father's unyielding criticism and drinking left me feeling the need to be in control and on a frustrating quest for unattainable perfection. Thankfully, I also inherited an intuitive nature and love of self-evaluation. I saw there was work to be done and I chose change. As a parent I wanted to be free from the restraints that my childhood had attached to my life. Don and I waited several years before starting a family, which availed me time to study childhood development, scrutinize my behavioral tendencies and formulate a plan for transformation so that, once we started our family, I could be the best mother I could possibly be.

I did not want to control my children's lives but rather hoped to expose them to the exhilarating world of choices -- their choices for their own destinies. I did not want to be critical and judgmental but to support and lift them up, allowing their individual creativity, uniqueness and beauty to shine. I also sought to be personally fulfilled so that my children did not grow up feeling weighted with a burden to complete me.

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