That should be a cold slap in your parental face.
We get roughly eighteen years of our kid/s living under the roof (I got 16 but that’s another story in Puddle Jumpers).
Eighteen summers. You can count that time on your fingers and toes.
Let that sink in…
Then they walk out the door into their own life, and every bit of time you get after that is time they choose to give you.
Their choice, not yours.
And the secret?
They decide to give this long before they leave, and it’s up to us parents to be on the right side of that choice.
(Photo: My kids and I bringing main character energy in Ibiza, Spain this summer. We like Italy better but had to see what all the TikTok fuss was about)
As parents we are building memories that will last with our children into adulthood.
Ask yourself daily, “Am I building the right memories or not?”
As we say in the Navy SEAL Teams, you have to earn your Trident (SEAL pin) every day. More than a few guys I know were sent back to the regular Navy and the next boat leaving port for forgetting this. I write about this in my first book, The Red Circle.
In Puddle Jumpers, I explain that consistency is the enemy of part-time (In SEAL terms, half-assed…sorry-not-sorry) parenting.
It is up to you what kind of parent you want to be remembered as. And your kids will figure it out when they’re older.
You want to be a part-time parent, or a full-time parent who is a constant force in your children’s life.
That choice, made over and over across those eighteen years, is the entire foundation of the adult relationship you will have with them for the next fifty.
It’s the reason my kids, now 20, 21, 24, and I still vacation together yearly.
Kids, like Santa, keep a quiet list.
Not out of spite. Out of instinct.
They are quietly figuring out whether they are a genuine priority or a line item you will get to once the more urgent things at work and home are handled.
The conclusion they reach becomes the reason they either fly home for no occasion at all, or call twice a year out of obligation.
The return on being present is not something you collect while they are young.
You collect it decades later, in the relationship you get to have because you built it when it counted.
You get eighteen summers. Spend them like they are the foundation of everything that comes after.
Because they are.
Gracias for reading,
Brandon
Puddle Jumpers. On Amazon now.
