The most important pledge of all

This was written by Clinical psychologist and writer Marie Murray, its long but worth the read!

Parenting never ends: it is a lifelong undertaking. It is the most momentous venture, yet the one for which least preparation is received.

No prior training is provided unless actively undertaken or serendipity provides a chance to learn about relating to children.

Many parents hold a baby for the first time when they hold their own child. Now that is daunting: a little living creature, new, needy, utterly helpless and totally dependent. Parents looking into the dark depths of their baby's eyes are understandably overwhelmed that this human being is of their making, reliant on them and will be in a relationship with them until death do them part.

If vows are given at marriage, what a pledge is given at the birth of a child! It is more than to love, more than to cherish, more than to guide and prioritize. It is to be an appropriately integral, influential part of this person's life, all the days of that life, when needed. It is to be caring, available, advisory, forever.

If parenting was a singular skill it could be taught and it could be acquired, classes could be undertaken, data digested, books read, principles appropriated and applied. Parenting awards might be granted as one achieved the various levels of knowledge and aptitude required at each stage of the child's life.

But parenting is not like that.

While there are some immutable tenets - such as the need for gentleness, consistency, protection, boundaries, modeling, affirmation and love - each child is different and parents find themselves responding to the individuality of their children rather than to behaviorist principals.

This is because parenting is not a skill: it is a disposition that gets enacted skillfully if one knows one's child and has insight into oneself. It is not a set of techniques: it is a particular kind of presence and response to each individual child and each circumstance that arises in the parent-child relationship.

Parenting is not the implementation of regulations regardless of the child's temperament or the context of events as if one method serves all children all the time.

There is no one method; there is no one right way.There is no perfect prescription. Parenting is not about "doing". It is about "being". It is not about management. It is about relationship.

As each child is different, temperamentally, in personality, attachment and capacity to cope, parenting is about adaptation to the individuality of the child. Most parents do this intuitively, unconsciously, courageously and with a depth of insight into their own child that is not available to anyone else.

Parenting is not a way of controlling but a capacity to monitor appropriately, protect decisively, understand empathetically, listen carefully, guide judiciously, restrict benevolently, respond thoughtfully and care to the extent of human compassion and love for all of one's life as parents of a child.

That is why parenting never ends. Regardless of how grown up, financially independent, emotionally secure, personally mature or well established one's children are in their own families even as parents to your grandchildren, your child remains your child forever.

Your adult child, your middle-aged child, your child is always your child. This is a relationship that cannot be dictated. Elusive when we attempt to define it, it is special. It is unique - simultaneously holding on and letting go.

It is for life.


Parenting is a privilege, a life-long one. Enjoy it. Trust it.