July: On Family

July 22

While you’re raising and shaping your children, they’re raising something in you, too. The mirror they hold up to you is reflecting and revealing—it’s guiding you and reshaping you. Their honesty is funny, but it can also be brutal, casting a light on flaws or habits you may have tried to bury back in the shadows, forcing you to confront them and move beyond them.

It’s a beautiful yet dangerous thing. For every story of a parent who was transformed into a better version of themselves, there's another about someone broken by the same effort.

It’s difficult.

It’s the most difficult thing.

So for now, if you’re a parent, and if no one else is thanking you for all of your hard work, I just want to say thank you. And if you’re not a parent, consider throwing a thank you out there to yours. And if you don’t have the best relationship with your parents, consider thanking them for trying—because nobody’s perfect—or at the very least, for bringing you into this world and giving you a chance at this wacky and wonderful thing called life.*

*If you don’t speak with your parents, or if they’re not here anymore, you can still thank them in your head, your heart, and mind. It might do you more good than it does them. You never know.

• Reflection title: A Little Thank You Goes a Long Way
• Creative inspiration: Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
• Reflection question: When was the last time I thanked a parent in my life—or myself—for taking on the hardest job in the world?