Every day I am learning more about myself

Every day I learn more about myself as a person through parenting my children. Every day I come face to face with some childhood scar that remains deep down below the surface when I am parenting. All the things that went wrong for me, I want more than anything to protect my children from ever experiencing. Every hurt I had, I want to protect my children from experiencing. And some days I get it wrong. Some days I project myself too much on my children and I end up hurting them more than I ever intended. And when that happens I feel hurt, like a failure.
I feel like I have failed them as a mother when I see the pain in their faces for decisions I have made that impact them. I feel so sad that I have taken away a discovery they may have made on their own without me intervening. Without me trying to right their wrongs for them before they happen rather than letting them go out and face the wrong so they can know what they are capable of and what they are not.
And in those instances where I do, when I feel their pain and see their pain, I am learning to apologize to them. I am learning to tell them that it is very hard being a parent. Very hard tying to strike the balance between letting them fall and being there to pick them up and intervening to cushion their fall.
I am learning that no matter how grown we are when I see my children about to plunge into something that I know will scar them, my inner frightened child emerges and wants to take the hands of my children and pull them through the wilderness unscathed. Child to child. shielding them from the pain. But what I am learning through my children is that I am not meant to be there to direct. I am only meant to be there to guide. To give them the tools to make informed decisions about the circumstances they may find themselves in.So that they don't walk into any situation where I have background that could put them at risk. That could leave them vulnerable and exposed.
I am learning that parenting is not just limited to me nor my husband. I am learning that parenting shifts from parent to child and from child to parent on occasions because we are all parenting each other. All learning and teaching each other and teaching and learning each other. And when we recognise this important piece of the puzzle for parenting, we find we learn something new every single day about ourselves. We accept that the pain we experienced as children helped us to grow into the adults we are today and sometimes there are experiences our children must go through in order to learn compassion and how to go on even after experiencing  horrible hurt.
On those days when I feel like I have failed as a parent, I am learning that that failure is allowing a breakthrough for me and for my children because the failure is opening the door for us to explore something more about each other that would not have been possible before. What I am also learning is that we have to let our children know when we have overstepped the boundaries and let them know we have confidence in them to be who they came here to be. Making them aware that sometimes we will get it wrong as parents because we are human. And because we are human we will make mistakes.Just like they will.
Parenting is one of the hardest roles I will ever have because it means I have to look at myself every single day to determine if I am setting the example for my children to go out into the world equipped to deal with whatever comes their way. I have to examine my actions to make sure my children see compassion, love, giving, forgiving and most of all vulnerability. Because I am learning over and over again that it is not what we say to our children that matters, it is how we live that matters because that's what stays with them. That's what they will emulate. That's what grows them into who they become.
And most of all I accept every day I am learning more about myself through the eyes of my children when I see their expressions reflected back to me about the effect I have on their lives. And some days I do better than others I know. But that's the challenge - the challenge of being a parent - a good parent, an effective parent. A parent that understands there is a delicate balance between living my children's lives for them by directing them every step of the way and allowing my children to live their lives by guiding them so they can make informed decisions about what is good for them and what is not. So they can grow wings to be whomever they came here to be; not who I, or anyone else, wants them to be.