What gives you hope?

Tracey | Te Tai Poutini

Tracey reflects on the balance between being a parent and a friend, highlighting the importance of guiding without interfering and learning alongside her children.

“It’s such an amazing journey to bring a young person into the world. She’s amazing. She’s beautiful, kind, intelligent. She’s great. It’s going to be hard when she moves on.

And there’s still a little bit more I’ve got to offer about keeping yourself organised, and I’m learning through that too, because I’ve always got to lead by example. It sort of rolls around like that, doesn’t it? The next thing that I’ve got to teach you, I’m actually teaching myself.

I think I’ve always been a friend and I’ve had to watch myself not to be too much of a friend. Because you’ve got to be the parent and sometimes it’d be easier just to be the friend. So what it’s meant for me is that now I find that I can relax and actually be the friend without worrying about being the parent quite so much. We’re only here to guide anyway, you know.

I think sometimes the best thing we can do is just oversee and not get in the way.”