My greatest fear for my children is that they won’t fulfil their dreams. This is because I didn’t fulfil all the dreams that I had when I was younger. Trust me I had many. I had a dream job, a dream to travel, and just so many dreams. When I think back on my life I didn’t fulfil any of them. Well not in the order that I wanted to fulfil them. I have done a little traveling but I really thought that I would’ve have done more by now. I have the job I wanted which is working with kids but when I was younger I thought I would be working in the school system. It took me awhile to realize that there is more than one way to achieve your dream. There is not one path to fulfilling a dream. But at the same time I don’t want their path to be hard.
Nishe’ is looking for a job so that she can go back to school. If you didn’t read the story of what happened to cause her to come home you can find it here. My baby girl is doing all she can to find a job. I have kind of been pressuring her to do more. Like pick a day get on the bus and go into businesses to see if they are hiring and even try different job sites other than the usual ones she goes too. Of course she shoots down every idea because she wants to do things her way. She wanted to figure out her situation on her own and I wanted to help. So I was doing everything I could to try to get her to listen to me. We actualy had disagreements a few times over this. For the longest time I had a hard time trying to find any sympathy for her situation cause she has only been looking for a job for a few months while mine took years. I just felt like she wasn’t doing enough to better her situation. Then I realized I had to take a step back and figure out why I was going so hard for her to do things my way.
When I actually took a step back and thought about it I realized I was pushing my fears on to her. I am so afraid that she won’t fulfil her dreams that I am basically trying to take over her job search and get her to do what I think she should do. I mean it’s okay for me to give advice and everything but I have to allow her to figure out what she wants to do in her life. She will have to figure these things out herself. In my head I see her giving up like I did for awhile and I have been down that road and would never want her to be in my position. Then again she is a young adult and she has plenty of time to figure things out. So do I. I know I need to just back off and let her do what she needs to do. I have promised myself to do that. Because I don’t want her to adopt my way of thinking.
So because I am not trying to push my worries and fears on her I am really trying hard to let her handle her search. I just really don’t want her search to be as long as mine was. But I have to realize that she isn’t me. Plus her journey will not be the same as mine. Even if it is similar I am sure she can figure it out. She has no choice but to figure it out. But I have to let her figure it out and not try to force her to do what I think she should do. I really struggle with this because I just don’t want my child to hurt or not continue the things that she wants to pursue in life. But I have no control over that either. So I have to find a way to just be supportive and not be so pushy.
It is very important to me that my kids be successful in their lives. But they have to carve out their own path to success. I can’t do it for them and I can’t stop them from having tough times. I also can’t force my ideas on how they reach their success on them. Doesn’t matter what I think is best they need to decide what they want to do on their own. It’s hard to see them struggle but they have to.
