Maybe This Is What We Were Raising Them For.

I heard my daughter say she wasn’t going to homeschool her kids.

Mind you, she was homeschooled from second grade through graduation.

What surprised me most wasn’t what she said, but my reaction to hearing it.

I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t even disappointed.

I was happy that she has made a decision for herself.

Not just doing something because it’s what I did with her.

And I keep thinking about that.

Having adult children who make their own decisions is hard at first. I think it’s easy to believe that their choices somehow reflect how we raised them—especially when they choose something different from what we did with them or something we don’t necessarily believe in ourselves.

But I’m proud of myself for not letting her decision about homeschooling her future children affect me emotionally.

I know I made the best decision for my family at the time.

And her decision may not look like mine. That doesn’t make it a wrong decision.

In fact, I want my children to make decisions that are best for their families. I don’t want them to blindly follow what I did simply because I did it.

That wouldn’t really be success as a parent, would it?

I also know she has plenty of time to change her mind. She says this now, but she may feel differently when she actually has children. Or maybe she won’t.

Either way, I’m going to love her just the same.

Because it’s her life to live.

Her family to raise.

And her choices to make.

Maybe one of the hardest—and sweetest—parts of motherhood is realizing that the goal was never to raise children who become little versions of us.

It was to raise people who can grow into themselves.