Being a parent is a journey. Nearly every day there seems to be something to cause stress, some kind of disagreement, and many tears. There is much deep grief which we hold as parents, and particularly as mothers: the grief of sympathetic feeling for anytime our child is upset, or the grief of feeling overwhelmed by it all and wondering what happened to the old you.

Any kind of grief is letting go of a loss, and we can process this in a healthy way. When we became parents, we lost a lot of things and it is ok to cry about this.

Then something reminds us that is all worth it. Perhaps your child spontaneously runs up to you and gives you a kiss, says something hilariously funny or tells you that they love you. Then those tears of grief can transform, so easily, into tears of joy and delight.

My son just celebrated his 3rd birthday. We don’t usually like to have single-use items in the house, but he has been talking about having balloons on his birthday for weeks. So on the morning of his birthday, I made sure that he woke up to a room decorated with many balloons.

Just as I had hoped, he was delighted! But of course, it wasn’t enough to have the balloons hanging up as decorations; he wanted to play with them. I blew up a new balloon with him and started hitting it up into the air. We ran around the room, trying to keep it up in the air and not touching the floor. My son was so excited, he was screaming in delight, and I couldn’t stop laughing. Laughing and laughing, until tears came.

It’s those tears of joy which really remind us why being a parent is such a precious thing. 

Main Photo by David Adler.
Balloon photo by Ali Kokab