There is a moment in most of parents'life that they feel like orphans. Children, they say, grow up in just one moment.

It is paradoxal.When they are born, small and fragile, the first months seem endless. Father and mother are both searching for signals of life in their tiny faces.

They look forward for the first smile, they expect the little ones to agitate their arms, to sit down and stand up; everything is an anxious expectancy.

Then suddenly, they become teenagers. No more trips with parents over the weekend or holidays with the family.

Now, everything is done with friends.

They look at the face of the boy and realize the first signs of beard, like a bird mother who finds down on her nestlings'wings. The little girl becomes a woman. This is the moment youngsters leave the domestic nest.

It is the moment parents wonder: Where are those little babies with milk scent and wet nappies? Where are the imaginary games of make-believe, the teas made of nothing, the invincible heroes that could do everything in their imaginary battles against evil?

The trips to the country or to the beach are not so loud anymore. The childish songs and eternal pleas for ice-cream, sweets, and pop corn have been replaced by silence or the animated conversation with friends who share their happiness.

Parents feel orphans of children. The little ones grew up without them realizing exactly when it happened. Yesterday they were kids bringing their balls to be fixed. Today they are teaching us how to operate the computer and how to explore better the programs that are available.

The impression is that when they went to bed they were children and when they woke up they were teenagers, in the blink of an eye.

Yesterday they had to be accommodated at the back seat of the car; today they are the ones driving, giving you lessons on how to drive properly.

We miss the days that are gone. It is the moment we reflect we could have left our business on the side and played more often with them, rolling on the grass, playing football.

We should have listened to them more often, taking pleasure on their accounts, on their conquests and adventures, their first deceptions, their fears. We should have taken them to the cinema more often, enjoying their vibration at the heroism of the actors on the screen.

A time that will not come back until our grandchildren arrive, the ones we will have to wait for.

Parents, let's stay close to your children. Our existence is brief and the opportunities precious.

Everything else we have or do that might fulfill our time will not compensate the time dedicated to the Spirits that shaped the bodies of our little ones, to be with us.

Do not save hugs, caresses, attention, because our example will determinate their happiness and their benefic growing or the sadness of feckless days of the future.

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A child that grows up with tenderness will learn to be gentle.

The message of attention from one to the others is learned from parents to children.

On the day-by-day with parents they learn that human beings and their feelings are more important then professional success and all its accessories.

In essence, children learn what they experience.

Spiritist Moment Team, based on the article Antes que elas cresçam, from the magazine Reader’s Digest, September/1998.
 February 14.2011.