To my kids: I hope you fail.
Hey guys,
Mom here. I have had a lot on my mind lately. You see, I’m watching each of you growing and learning and all the while I’m growing and learning too.
Sometimes, when you’re asleep, I look over at you and wonder what you’re learning that I don’t know about. Not times tables or spelling words or history facts. Not social skills or dabbing or how to get past that level on Luigi Mansion 3.
I mean the things you learn without talking about them. The things you don’t realize you’ve learned until you’re a little older and a little wiser and you can look back and say “Wow, that really taught me something.”
In those moments, there is one thing I’ve been afraid to hope for. But today, as I realized how important it’s been in my own growing and learning, I realized I needed to tell you.
I hope you fail.
Not because I don’t love you, I do. So much that sometimes my lungs feel warm and I fight back tears.
Not because I wish bad things upon you. Oh my darlings, if I could wave a magic wand and you could gain wisdom without pain, I would.
Not because I am a believer in the idea that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, and I want to toughen you up. The world will do that on its own.
But because it is only out of failure that you can truly grow. It is only out of learning how to fail, that you learn what it takes not to.
You’re going to have to say something absurd in a social situation. You’re going to have to kiss someone badly. You’re going to have to not get the A+. You’re going to have to fall off the bike to know how to stay on.
That is what I want for you. Not just to fail. But to learn the beauty of failing. To learn what a lovely blessing it is to get it wrong-and to know how to dust yourself off, pívot, and figure out what went wrong so that you don’t do it again.
And if it is ever too hard to pick yourself back up, come home. I’ll always be here to lend a hand. Except when I beat you at Mario Kart. Dad can tend to those wounds.
Keep being awesome.
Love, Mom
