As a parent, I have found myself genuinely surprised how much harder it is to just let your kids be themselves...especially children who are the same gender as you. As the child, it seems so obvious. Why can't your parents just encourage and support you the way you are? Why are they so selfish?
Suddenly you become a parent and you find your fears and concerns about your child's future getting in the way of just letting them be them. You're afraid they won't be successful with a certain characteristic or they will struggle more with a certain interest. But this week, I found myself doing something I never thought I would do - controlling a birthday party.
Obviously, in my line of work, I am an expert in parties. But I found myself imposing my expectations on my daughter. I had a vision of what I wanted her to have - what I thought would be cute and adorable and quite frankly, what I thought my friends would think is cute and adorable. My daughter wanted a bounce house party - all I could think was "Really? Another bounce house party?" I told my husband about my dilemma and he really gave me food for thought. He said, "What's wrong with that? She went to a bounce house with all of her friends from school and had a ball. A bounce house is totally her. She loves it."
And suddenly, I realized he was right. She might enjoy the party I wanted her to have, but who cares? She wants a party at a bounce house and it's her birthday. So I'm not sure which birthday option she will choose but I realized that as long as it's within our budget, it should be her choice. And she should love it.
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