What your parents did without feeling like it
"Did you like making meals, doing the washing, taking us to school?" "Like it, not much. But I loved you."
A daughter asked her mother, by then elderly, whether she had liked the housework: cooking, washing, taking them to school. The mother remembered the tiredness, the money worries, the nights of fever, the odd plate smashed against the wall in a moment of impatience. And she answered: "Like it, not much. But I loved you, and I enjoyed watching you grow."
Behind every ordinary day of our childhood there are hours of work we didn't see: meals, loads of washing, early mornings, worries. Our parents didn't do it because they loved doing it, but because they loved us.
Growing up is also realizing that. And being grateful for it, even if your parents weren't perfect.
Key idea
Much of what you received from your parents they did without feeling like it, but with love.
Your challenge for this idea
Today, ask your mother or father what they found hardest when you were small, and listen.
BASED ON
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