This post is republished from @bentlily, a poet who began writing a poem a day when her son was born. It spoke to me, and I wanted to share it.

My little guy had an epic 9-year-old meltdown the other day.

I’m a classic conflict avoider so I hate standing in these storms. I always want to give in to make the yelling stop. And yet, I try to find just enough fortitude to hang on. Often, I visualize my son all grown up. I picture him happy, resilient, brave and fulfilled. Then I picture him navigating a tantrum with his own son, and how I will share the wise words that a dear friend shared with me, which is that it would be so much easier to protect our kids from all hard things and big emotions, but it’s not ultimately the compassionate thing to do.

Kids can handle boundaries and disappointments. And if we don’t let them practice how to handle those, they grow up into adults that not only can’t handle those kid-sized frustrations, they are flattened by any adult-sized challenges.

As she so beautifully said, “It would be easier to never let it rain on our children, but it would not be kind, for they would grow up believing every drop could wash them away.”

SO MANY STORMS LATER

Years from now,
I will tell you again
how much easier it would have been
to just say yes to everything.

I will tell you
about the day
I said you couldn’t
go to your friend’s house
until you had done your math.

You screamed in my face
and hated me so much
I could see it felt good
so you kept screaming.

Years from now,
you will be taller than me
so I will be leaning on you
as we look down at your own son
looking so peaceful
asleep in his little bed,
it will be hard to remember
how he had been like a volcano
earlier that day
shouting boiling hot rocks
all over you.

You will ask me
if you should have just
said yes.

I will look at you
a man now,
so many storms later,

and I will take your hand
like we’ve always done
and I will say
as a wise friend once said to me,

“it would be easier
to never let it rain on our children

but it would not be kind

for they would grow up
believing every drop
could wash them
away.” 

~ bentlily