The Grief of Who We Thought Our Children Should Be
- Camille Ellis
- Aug 13
- 3 min read
Raising kids is no joke!
It’s one of the best and hardest things we will ever commit to.
I was only 23 when I had my first son. I couldn’t wait to be a mother. I knew I would be a great mother and love my children the way children should be loved. I wanted to give them the very best I could—and I did.
I believe raising children is one of the greatest opportunities we are given for our own growth and understanding.
The sacrifices we make as parents are immeasurable. The love and commitment are greater than anything we can prepare for.
I believed that with my love and guidance, my children would grow into the best versions of themselves.
And they did.
Just not at all the way I imagined.
My children learned to be very independent because of my work schedule and the many years I spent as a single parent. In many ways, their independence was a wonderful thing.
Then they became teenagers.
Suddenly, they didn’t think they needed my guidance anymore. They ventured into their teenage lives with independence, bravery, and plenty of their own ideas about how life should be lived.
Mistakes were made.
And I took many of those mistakes personally.
I tried to guide them back toward the versions of them I had imagined.
Of course, that didn’t work.
If only I had possessed my coaching skills back then…
I could have saved myself a lot of stress and anxiety!
Now, looking back, I see those years differently.
Learning how to adapt, accept my children, respect their choices, and creatively help them through their challenges has become one of my greatest achievements.
We fail and succeed as parents right alongside our children as they fail and succeed in becoming themselves.
Perhaps one of the greatest heartaches of parenting is learning to let go.
We have to let our children become who they stubbornly, beautifully, and imperfectly choose to be.
We can put ourselves through tremendous grief waiting for our children to become who we think they should be.
It’s exhausting.
And it can become torture when we believe their lives, choices, mistakes, and futures are somehow ours to control.
Now that my children are grown, I can see that so much of what I feared was never within my control.
My children—even the ones I didn’t give birth to—have become remarkable individuals.
And my son Wes, who is no longer physically with us, gave me one of my greatest educations in love and acceptance.
His journey taught me that loving someone does not mean controlling their path.
It means loving them while they walk it.
For all the parents out there, no matter how old your children are, you don’t have to live in constant struggle, worry, and fear.
You can learn to be calm and loving while your children develop, make mistakes, face consequences, find their strength, and live their own journeys.
So much of our suffering comes from our thoughts about who our children should be, what they should do, and how their lives should turn out.
But what if you released those thoughts?
What if, instead of waiting for your child to become the person you imagined, you became curious about the person standing in front of you?
What if you allowed yourself to love them without needing their journey to look different?
How would you feel?
Maybe that is one of the greatest lessons our children are here to teach us:
How to love deeply.
How to let go.
And how to accept what we cannot control.
Schedule with me here 👇🏼
Xo, Camille ✨
P.S. New Podcast interview with Live, Love, Thrive and Survive Podcast. Listen here 👇🏼
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