I’ve been thinking lately about how important it will be, as my children grow, for me to embrace each of them for who they are and not who I think they should be. This isn’t always easy. Let’s go back a good 20 years. I was the child that got a special award for being the only person in the elementary school to enter all four categories of the Reflections contest. I was the child who in 5th grade turned down going on Caribbean Cruise because I didn’t want to miss a week of school (I still regret that one). I wanted to get all As, I wanted to be involved. I aspired for greatness, but I guess you could say I was a little high strung.

I have one child in particular who has similar aspirations to achieve, and oh does that make my heart sing when I see her sign up and contribute and try her best. I feel some sort of pride watching her join Math Olympiads and the debate team and strive for excellence in her grades and with her music. I find myself thinking “Yes! You are aiming high and accomplishing! Good for you!”

But here’s the thing. Not all of my children are this way. They are motivated in other ways and get more excited to play and relax than to achieve. Sometimes I feel my younger self worrying. “But you can’t miss a day of school, or be late to class, or not study for a test!” Then I remind myself, “Oh, there are so many good ways to be in this world.”

Today I make a promise to myself to love each of my children for their strengths and their weaknesses, because both make them beautiful. And one of my most favorite scriptures (Ether 12:27) reminds me that it is in our weakness that we find our strength and that it is only through those weaknesses that we learn to rely on grace. Yes, my children are flawed. And that is by design.

For family night this week, we watched a video about a little bird sitting in a wet nest in the rain, waiting for his eggs to finally hatch while watching a beautiful, singing, hatching bird family next to him. The bird rolls his eyes in the drizzle and pulls out his cell phone, scrolling through images of other birds having fun and looking amazing. He tries to sleek his hair back to match one of the more handsome birds he sees, and his hair falls back flat in his face. He slumps down in the wetness. Just then another bird starts gathering a choir of all the birds around. The wet bird in the nest at first shakes his head no. Surely he has nothing to offer. But with a little encouragement from the choir director he finally flies over to join all the different voices. When he finally opens his mouth, he realizes he has a beautiful, deep baritone to contribute, making the music even better than before. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlB0WoF18V0

I love the reminder that we are all important and valuable exactly the way we are. God’s choir is meant to have many voices. We all have our good stuff and our hard stuff. As a mom, my job will be to keep that in mind as I watch my precious little ones grow. I’ll keep encouraging them to be their best, but I’ll try to remember that their path to happiness and their best self will be different than mine. They will turn into exactly the people they are meant to be, and thank goodness for that.