To all parents: I watch you, I hear you, and I honor you today. I believe you are the most valuable, criticized members of society. This criticism proves your value and reflects the spoken and unspoken expectations and standards that settle upon you. Your influence runs deepest. God designed it that way. Parenting is a weighty prize, worthy of your engagement.

What one camp says is the way with kids, the next camp says is the biggest mistake you could make. On a perfection scale you fail everyday, because perfection doesn’t exist. One ideology promotes protecting your children while another suggests releasing them into trial and error. One group of influence says give your children your all which often manifests as “do anything you can” for them, another exhorts you to teach your children how to do all, and another believes they’re making the best choice by paying others to teach and take better care of their children than they can.

In some cases permissive parenting is praised and in others it’s investigated. Some parents earnestly practice authority and strain along the path to being authoritative but not authoritarian. Some parents feel so overwhelmed about showing up within the descriptors they run away from parenting altogether. 

Parenting is a relationship, a calling, and an occupation all at the same time. I honor you all for the tenacity it takes to show up to your children each day and be so inevitably exposed through parenting.

Wherever you find yourself today in your process of becoming, you are loved. You are learning. It’s not too late to make an adjustment. It’s not too late to change your mind. It’s not too late to ask for forgiveness. It’s not too late to redefine your purpose as mom or dad. It’s not too late to make a radical shift to your daily role as a parent. It’s not too late to sow a good seed. It’s not too late. It’s not too late.

If your journey has included loss of or disconnection to your child or children, I feel so deeply with you and I pray you are comforted in the pain. There is space for you in this conversation. There always has been and always will be. You are loved and redemption is possible. There are many mothers and fathers who need to hear what you’ve learned, what you’ve gained, and what you’ve lost. We need you to keep being brave.

Maybe winning today as parents simply looks like engaging, again. Where you’ve shut down, reopen. Be willing to feel again, to face the problem again, and believe for better again. At minimum parenting requires persistence. Keep going moms and dads, we are going with you.