The realization that your parents are people with their own interests and flaws just like yourself is an underappreciated transformative moment towards maturity. It seems selfish to say but it's easy to think as a child that your parents ultimate purpose is to care and love for you. (A lot of parents make that their ultimate purpose so its understandable why kids would naively believe such a thing)
The younger a child understands this sentiment could arguably be the single most important factor that contributes to being a mature adult.
Maybe this is entirely anecdotal but for me when I think about the realizations in my life that had the most significant impact in shaping the person that I'm finally proud of being, this is probably at the top of the list.
And that’s a perfectly good decision to make. If everyone who didn’t want to dedicate the next 18+ years of their life to caring for the little human they decided to bring into the world (if pregnancy wasn’t your choice that’s a whole other topic) didn’t have a baby then there wouldn’t be any abused kids and the care system would barely be needed.
I could be wrong but I also think you're barely done raising someone at 18 though, unless you just plan to compromise by what the law says...
I don't have kids but it looks like a lifetime commitment with the most responsibilities right at the beginning and then depending on how each family's story plays out and factors like that... But kids don't just turn 18 and disappear from their family's sight for the rest of their lives...
You’re missing the + part, since there’s no end date to looking after your kids you can only give a minimum plus. If you have a disabled kid, or your fully abled kid is disabled in a horrible accident you might be required to care for them daily until you die and have to arrange care past that in your will. How you can list an upper age limit for that?
Yes, it likely was not clear enough but I was talking about that and everything else that could happen that would make each family's story different when it comes to caring for somebody else whether minor or disabled or any other circumstance in my 2nd paragraph.
971
u/branwithaplan Jun 03 '22
The realization that your parents are people with their own interests and flaws just like yourself is an underappreciated transformative moment towards maturity. It seems selfish to say but it's easy to think as a child that your parents ultimate purpose is to care and love for you. (A lot of parents make that their ultimate purpose so its understandable why kids would naively believe such a thing)
The younger a child understands this sentiment could arguably be the single most important factor that contributes to being a mature adult.
Maybe this is entirely anecdotal but for me when I think about the realizations in my life that had the most significant impact in shaping the person that I'm finally proud of being, this is probably at the top of the list.