Do Parents "Own" Their Children for Life?

This has been something that has been in the back of my mind for many years now, particularly since the birth of my son nearly four years ago. As soon as we knew we were pregnant with him, but especially since he was born, I've been reading books on how to be a good father for him. My own childhood example was one of physical abuse and neglect at the hands of an alcoholic stepfather, so I wanted to start fresh as it were.

Part of my voyage of self-discovery as a parent, including letters and conversations with my own mother and father, led me to the conclusion that some parents believe they own the lives of their children forever. (I heard this all but stated by my mother, in this case.) Given the experiences I had as a child, this rankled me more than it should have.

The mother and father have the first eighteen years of their child's life to mold, shape, and imbue him or her with the tools he or she will need to go out into the world and function in a healthy manner. In the best case, the child knows (or at least has a good idea about) what he wants to do with his life and the life skills to function (balance a checkbook, get a job, do his own laundry, interact with other people, etc.) I realize not all parents are created equal, so I have grace for some young adults not having some skills.

Now, if a mother and/or father half-asses the parental responsibilities for whatever reason and by some minor miracle, the child makes it to age 18 intact and leaves the house, does that mean that the parents automatically have the right to dictate the child's life into perpetuity? I strongly believe the answer is a resounding NO!

You see, I believe that before we are born we decide what life lessons we want to learn to further our soul's journey, so we pick the childhood that would best facilitate those lessons and make an agreement with our parents beforehand, acknowledging their character defects and situation up front. In that respect, we do pick our parents, race, ethnicity, financial situation, etc, at birth. We make a choice to start off life with the end in mind.

Once we've had that start over the first eighteen years or so, we head out into the world to learn the rest of what we came down here to learn. In my case, I came down here to learn how to take care of myself in all areas of my life as an adult. Therefore, "I" chose to have bad parents with lousy parenting skills so I could enter adulthood without the lifeskills most people gained. In this way, I could learn the lessons for myself and further my soul's journey.

Knowing I picked my parents helped mitigate the anger and resentment I felt for them throughout my early adulthood, but which I suppressed until I became a father myself (at age 37) and learned that what I experienced was not okay. I still don't have a solid relationship with my father, mother, or brothers over what happened and maybe that's okay.

What I've taken away from my experience is that we own our own lives and we parents have the childhood of our children to teach them everything they need to know and then we let them spread their wings and fly without regret, trusting that they too came down here to learn lessons for their own soul's journey. Enjoy every day of that childhood and be in the moment as much as possible with your sons and daughters.