The other day a friend of ours told us something really beautiful about his relationship with his teenage son. He said that as his child gets older, he feels more and more like a “moment collector,” gathering and cherishing as many memories as he can of all of the precious moments they get to spend together.
We think this is an amazing way to look at parenthood.
If you’re able to be a moment collector, that means you’re not only spending quality time with your kids (which is great for their happiness, confidence and overall emotional development), you’re also letting yourself fully soak up every experience you have as a parent (so you’ll be able to look back later at this time in your life feeling pretty darn good about the job you did).
We think this is a particularly great thing to remember over the holidays too, when it’s awfully easy to get so caught up in baking, shopping, decorating and figuring out what the eff to do with your elf on the shelf this time that you sometimes forget to focus on, and really enjoy, all those little moments with your kids that are actually what this whole parenting thing should be about.
We wish you a holiday season that is truly magical, memorable and filled with all of the wonderful parenting moments you can gather.
One reply on “Mom and Dad, Moment Collectors”
Absolutely! My nephew is now almost 20 and I have created a ‘book’ if you will of his life (basically “Memories”)—it has 130 pages (and some pieces of the ‘journals’ I made him keep on trips to Columbus) and I am not done yet. I look back and read these things (couldn’t possible keep all of the memories in my not-so-easily-accessible-head harddrive)—and am SO Glad I wrote them down.