Hold that space.

2 min readJan 17, 2017

Being a crap parent is easy. Being a good parent is hard. Being a perfect parent is the worst thing I can try to be.

There is a space, between my kids and me as their dad. Like a moat around an old castle, this space allows them to grow, and allows me to stand just at arm’s length, and let that growth happen.

Of course, that means I have to let a whole lot of other stuff happen too. I have to let other kids be mean to them, I have to let them make mistakes, I have to let them hurt people sometimes too. Not because I want to let those things happen, but just because they will happen in that space.

The danger for me, because of my own childhood experience mostly, is that bad people will be in that space too. Not a bully in their year at school, or a girlfriend or boyfriend who dumps them and tells the whole school bus, but bad adults.

It’s my greatest fear: that they will be sucked in like I was, that someone will take advantage of their innocence, and steal it forever.

And you know what? That might happen. I have four kids so the stats are pretty damning that something bad might happen to one of them. But I can’t live my life just trying to protect them FROM life. That’s not my job.

My job is simply to hold that space. Teach them some things that will help them, and about some things that definitely won’t help them. Encourage them to be themselves. Encourage them to grow, and be #vulnerable, and use their love as an amazing gift, and not use it as a weapon.

If I try to be that perfect parent, and be in every single moment of my kids’ life, and never make a mistake in my parenting, it won’t help my kids, and it won’t help me.

I can gaze across that space at them, and they can look out to me (and I hope they do), and that space that we create — and hold — will help them develop into #brave, #resilient, and safe men and women.

It’s hard. But so is being a good parent.

Hold that space.

Written by Nick Bowditch