The Circle of Life

 

    What do you think of when you hear Circle of life? For me, the picture in my head is Rafiki holding Simba up for the animals of the pride land to see. The song is eve playing in my head as I type. 

    Actually what the circle of life is we’re born and we have our parents taking care of us. Most of us have wonderful parents, but some of us don’t. We continue to grow and stretch our boundaries, moving away from our parents and toward adulthood. We get married, have kids of our own and watch them grow. We don’t think about the fact that as we get older, our parents are getting older too. Then our kids grow up, go to college, get married. We realize that our parents are slowing down, needing more help.. Some of us even move our parents in with us. In an in-law suite, or rooms just for them. Some of us can’t do that so they go into assisted living or have help coming into the home. Then we worry about our parents as well as our kids. When is the right time to try to get them to stop driving? What if they fall when we aren’t there? What if they go for a drive and forget where they are and where they need to go? Do we hide their keys, or put trackers on their car? Did they leave the stove on? Is that cough just a cold or something more? 

    Suddenly we are ‘parenting’ our parents. The problem is that it is so much more difficult than parenting our kids. It’s easy to give our kids boundaries. It isn’t so easy to give our parents boundaries. They have lived a lot longer and they think they know more than us. They usually do know more than us, but they still don’t always know what is good for them. 

    The real circle of life is not all cute lion cubs, meerkats and warthogs singing Hakuna Matata. It would be so much easier if it was! Or maybe not. Who knows?