nurse and nurture...protect and provide...

munchkin wrangler's chafing from ignorant assumptions about his chosen parental role...

no need for that, though...

nurse and nurture...protect and provide...
there’s a lot of depth and meaning in those four words when it comes to the functions of a real parent…culture mostly attaches the more obvious implications of the two former to mothers and the two latter to fathers, and so do i.

thank God, men and women are different and differently equipped, so i have no problem acknowledging that some of the literal meanings of nursing and nurturing are best left to women, and vice versa that some natural and/or archaic functions of protecting and providing are the chosen/assigned domain of most men.

but if nurturing also means being allowed the honor helping my children grow their souls, and nursing means holding them through the night to take away their pain, then count me in on that…those experiences were among the most gratifying of my life.

and if protecting means my wife’s vigilance over our kids like a lionness, (do not get between her and her kids!), and providing means imbuing to them the love, hope, devotion, courage, and strength that she is made of, then that is her role as well.

external expectations aside, who does what doesn’t matter much, but that it gets done…for the children as well as for ourselves, because it's really the same thing; there's not a me, you, and them in a family but just an us...

and fulfillment will come naturally from within…it is wonderful, you will miss it when it is gone but the rewards will last you and your children a lifetime.

jtc