your child is not your unfinished story

Hello beautiful soul.

Before we became parents, we were children too.

Children with dreams.

Longings.

Talents.

Wounds.

Some of our dreams unfolded beautifully.

Others quietly faded into the background of our lives.

Perhaps there was something you wished you had pursued.

A path you never took.

A part of yourself you set aside to survive, belong, or meet the expectations of others.

Most of us carry unfinished stories.

And without realizing it, parenting can awaken them.

We see our children standing at crossroads we once stood at.

We notice gifts in them that remind us of ourselves.

We want to spare them from pain.

We want them to succeed where we struggled.

We want their lives to be easier than ours.

All of this is deeply human.

But sometimes our hopes become expectations.

Our dreams become burdens.

And our unfinished stories become threads wrapped around theirs.

A child who loves art may be pushed toward practicality.

A child who prefers quiet may be encouraged to become more outgoing.

A child who chooses differently than we would have chosen may stir anxiety within us.

This is not because we do not love our children.

It is because we are still human beings carrying our own stories.

Untangling invites us to gently ask:

Whose dream is this?

Whose fear is this?

Whose story is asking to be completed?

Our children are not here to heal our wounds or fulfill our unmet desires.

Their thread belongs to them.

And ours belongs to us.

The beautiful truth is that when we release our children from carrying our unfinished stories, we also give ourselves permission to tend to our own.

It is never too late to write a new chapter.

For them.

Or for us.

With Love,

Maria