What Really Matters

As a parent, there are many moments when you feel you're doing it wrong. There are even some days you feel like you're doing it ALL wrong. And every now and then, you have a moment that tells you that along the way, maybe just maybe, you've done a lot of things right.

One such moment occurred yesterday when I picked my kids up from the baby sitter's house. We hadn't left the driveway and my daughter told my son that he needed to be quiet because she really wanted to hear the song on the radio. He was excited to tell me about his day and paid no attention to her less than polite request.

"Alex!!" she yelled.

"No Lauren, your brother is talking and we'll listen to the radio when he's done," I replied. "Your brother is more important than the radio."

Before she could get out some form of "but Daddyyy!!" my son said something that surprised me.

"Lauren, if I died would you miss me? Am I more important than your song?"

It nearly melted me to hear those words and I think it stopped my daughter in her tracks too.

"Alex," she said "if you died I'd never listen to that song again. I'd actually smash the radio or break the CD in half so no one could ever listen to that song again."

Dismissing the implications of smashing radios and destroying CD's as the passionate and overzealous words of a seven year old and not the early signs of a psychotic episode, I realized that my daughter "got it".

From the time the kids were born, I've preached that nothing is more important than family. Brothers and sisters are going to fight and there will be times that family will seem less important than their friends, their toys, and yes, even Taylor Swift songs. But, when times are tough and you feel like no one is on your side, your family will not abandon you. Your best friends are growing up in the same house, and nothing should ever be deemed to be more important than those friendships, that bond.

I was raised that way and I know I wouldn't be where I am today without the love and support of my family, even those siblings that drove me crazy from time to time.

I turned the radio back on.

And I smiled.