It is said that children are the glue that binds a couple together. Well, ask any battle-weary couple who has navigated the journey called parenting and their incredulity will tell you the real story. Children do add joy, happiness, and wonder to your daily lives. But give them two years and they are the best strategists in the world. You will not even have time to stop and wonder how and why your spouse has degenerated into the world’s greatest warrior.

Often, you will look at your sleeping child, the 4 kg poppet to the 75 kg gorilla, sometimes hedged between the two of you and marvel at the life you have created. Sleeping progeny inspire wonderful feelings – pride, contentment, and happiness. Well, let sleeping dogs lie. Stop that urge to say, “Hey, I think I did a good job!” Because, just when you decide that parenting is no longer an active verb in your life, the universe conspires to prove you wrong.

The teens and tweens will inform you that they know much more than you – well, they do. All that being online does allow them to learn about things that you and I have neither the time nor the inclination to research. Access to technology has allowed them to no longer be dependent on you for their knowledge and while you are managing lives, they are living.

Realization sets in often twenty years too late. You decide to unite against the common enemy to start taking baby steps to take back your life and your position as an oracle. Sorry, you will never be able to catch up – they have had the first-mover’s advantage. But in the process, you can rediscover the person with whom you started this journey. And that is often rewarding enough.

Children do bring you closer.