This is a test

A new human being comes into the world and parents are overwhelmed by their love and sense of responsibility.

They want to give that child the best food possible, devoid of chemicals and artificial hormones, food to build a strong body and mind with.

They want to provide the safest environment and most stimulating surroundings possible.

They want to give that little mind a chance to reach its full potential and that means avoiding stimuli that programs them to have short, twenty second attention spans, because that's what television and movies play to. A little bit goes a very long way.

Good parents watch them fail and wait to see how they recover, wanting to do it for them, encouraging them, but knowing that if you never fall, you never learn how to get back up.

And after all that careful tending we toss them out into the world to see if they will swim, or fly, or slither away -- and become a happy, healthy, wonderful adult.

And part of who they become is a credit to us. And part of it is a credit to themselves, because they are not our clones.  If we have done a good job they are distinctly unique human beings who provide us with our final test:

Loving them for just who they are and not who we thought they would be, or wanted them to be, or needed them to be.