Loving Parents
I saw a video in my reels the other day about a parent who assigns chores to her kids' friends once they've been over a few times, and it took me back to my tween years. When I was in middle/high school, my best friend's mom was that way too. Their door was almost always open to anyone who wanted to come over, but you had to pitch in. The first couple times, you got to be a guest, but after that you were family, with all the privileges and work that came with that. Their house was where I learned to bake from scratch, where I learned to speak up if I wanted to be heard, and where I spent hours exploring the woods. I've also adopted much of that mom's parenting style (mainly her orders to "Only call me if someone's bleeding or dying" when my kids are wrestling), because as an only child, I didn't have an example of how to navigate raising multiple kids. One of my pastors often says (I'm paraphrasing here), "God loves you enough to meet
