… umm, yes.

YES, IT DOES!

Listen up my parent friends and listen up real good! We only get eighteen years with ’em! Actually, make that sixteen once they get their driver’s licenses. WE brought them into this world of our own volition. None of them signed up for this gig – WE DID! Our kids shouldn’t have to sacrifice so that WE can have the lives we want. WE should make the sacrifices so that our KIDS can have the lives they DESERVE! There is nothing that should ever come between us and them. Not a job! Not a dream! Not a hobby! Not an education!

NOT EVEN

“THE LOVE OF OUR LIFE”!

Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who tries to put YOU between them and YOUR children? THAT would be a deal-breaker my and is NOT “the love of your life”!

Honey, I love you, but it’s me or them …

… to which your immediate response should be:

WELL THEN DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT IN THE ACTUAL FUCKING ASS!

Does that mean that we aren’t entitled to have those things? The jobs, dreams, hobbies, educations, and the loves of our lives? OF COURSE NOT! But here’s the deal: KIDS FIRST! US LAST! Period. End of story! The years with them home will be over before we know it and then it’s OUR time to fly! The sky’s the limit, but not at the expense of the wings we clip, mangle, twist and BURN when we’re more worried about our wings than theirs.

“Failure To Fly”

Look, I’m no doctor, but I am willing to bet that more “failed flights” than not are due in part to selfish parents who failed to make their kids a priority. I’m sorry that I’m not sorry if that’s kinda hard to swallow, but the truth does hurt, does it not? Let’s not be stupid and squander the fleeting time we have with them at home. More than that, let’s not be “those parents” that the parents who do sacrifice to put their kids first talk badly about behind our backs. WORST OF ALL, let’s not be “those parents” whose KIDS will be talking about to their kids one day, telling them all the things we did or didn’t do, and how our selfish parenting landed them in therapy and medicated because we shattered their fragile hearts like glass!

Not to be sanctimonious, but there are certain crimes against humanity that are deserving of such flagrant disapproval and reproach. ASSHOLE PARENTS ARE ONE OF THEM! For the record, I too have been guilty of some not so stellar, very selfish parenting. I’m not EVEN gonna sit here and lie! But guess what? I grew up, WOKE UP, and took a sobering look at the wreckage I’d gifted to the undeserving kids I allowed to become casualties of both my war within and my war abroad. After breaking apart for a not so hot minute or two, I looked into the mirror at the little girl who knew exactly how it felt to be at the losing end of an unavailable parent. My guilty conscience took care of the rest. I sat down with my both my kids at different times and stages appropriate to their age and understanding and had the hardest and most awkward conversations of my life:

Kids, I’m sorry, but mommy TOTALLY fucked you over! Let me tell you how …

At which point I owned it all, accounted for everything, APOLOGIZED, then vowed to start doing better! Never again will my kids be second to anything or anyone … NOT EVEN MY OWN DAMN SELF!

This song is probably one of the best “selfish parent serenades” I’ve ever heard. Digest the words REAL good! If you’ve ever been guilty of misappropriating the precious gift of parenthood, it may just twist you up inside the same way it twisted me the first time I heard it. Should that be the case, just do yourself a favor and change your parenting story immediately! Talk to your kids and fill their precious ears with only the most beautiful words. Validate their wounds. Accept them as they are.

But in the end, we were made to be apart in separate chambers of the human heart.

Is that the legacy you want to leave? Certainly not! But children grow up and become adults, many of whom end up spending so much time in therapy trying to fix the damage we caused that they have no choice but to keep us in “separate chambers of the heart”. They learn about boundaries and “loving from a distance” to protect themselves from us and break the cycle, and thus the bridge is burned.

For the record, no matter what seemingly unforgiveable parenting mistakes you’ve made or how old your children are, it’s never too late to own it, account for it, apologize, and start doing better! As long as you’re breathing and so are they, JUST FIX IT!

BURNING IN THE SKIES

I use the dead wood to make the fire rise. The blood of innocence burning in the skies. I filled my cup with the rising of the sea and poured it out in an ocean of debris. Ooh, I’m swimming in the smoke of bridges I have burned. So don’t apologize – I’m losing what I don’t deserve. What I don’t deserve. We held our breathe when the clouds began to form, but you were lost in the beating of the storm. But in the end, we were made to be apart in separate chambers of the human heart. Ooh, I’m swimming in the smoke of bridges I have burned. So don’t apologize – I’m losing what I don’t deserve. It’s in the blackened bones of bridges I have burned. The blame is mine alone for bridges I have burned. So don’t apologize – I’m losing what I don’t deserve. What I don’t deserve. {Linkin’ Park}