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By JustOlMa(with her permission)
posted over on the family board
I thought it might help....it helped me a lot

The Best and worst thing we do,

We help.

We love our children, our grandchildren we love them enough to sacrifice everything, including our lives.

In some instances this is right and proper, but those instances are few and far between. Most of us never have to face that moment of ultimate sacrifice, none of us would hesitate if that moment had come.

We help our children and grandchildren...we help build forts, help them learn and play...these things too are right and good...but we help too much sometimes...to the point where it is no longer help, no longer right, no longer good.

We either didn't know when to stop helping, or we never knew...

There comes a time when our help robs not only us but them of the life we all deserve, a life which is separate enough to be together. Each facing their own daily trials, each receiving their own growth lessons, our own peace.

In nature mothers allow their young to leave, birds push their offspring out of the nest to fly, and those offspring once they have gained strength in their wings fly away, leaving the nest behind, to forge their own lives and build their own nest.

We don't do that, at least not the same way.

We help.

We can help with the nest building, we can help with the 'extras' needed for that nest, yet all to often we draw or allow our offspring back into our own nest, where there isn't room for them any longer. At least not on a long term basis.

In helping we hinder, in hindering we harm...we allow or cause them to become dependent on us once again, and we and they resent it.

They show their resentment in rebellion against what they see as restrictions on their maturity, we show ours by retreating into a pit that is dark and deep.

They are our children, and when in our home we expect them to act like children. They are adults, and they want to be treated like adults, even when they act like children.

We fear for our grandchildren, yet we try to take on a responsibility that is not ours to own. Attempting to ensure the health and safety of those grandchildren. We want them caretaken as we care took our own children, or in ways we have come to believe they should be taken care of.

Sometimes our grandchildren do become our responsibility...sometimes it is needed that they do so.

Sometimes it is the courts who decide when that time is, sometimes it is an offer made and accepted, and sometimes it is asked for.

But we still need to be like the birds and push the fledglings out of our nest.