Balancing the Present and Future: A Parent's Challenge

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Exploring the challenges of parenting and balancing present responsibilities with future aspirations, using the example of a baseball player and emphasizing the importance of decision-making and building connections with children.

It can be hard in the moment to think of anything else. You have lunches to make. Practices to get to. Birthday parties to plan. Work to do. Childhoods to survive.

Having kids is so overwhelming that your ability to conceive of two weeks from now, let alone the future, is severely compromised. This isn’t entirely a bad thing—it’s good to be in the moment, to not get too far ahead of yourself.

But at the same time, you do need to make sure that you consider more than just this moment.

The baseball player Anthony Rendon has talked about how he’s needed to balance optimizing not just for his professional career but his goals as a parent. “Even if the season doesn’t work out or the next four years don’t work out,” he said recently, “I’m planning for taking care of my kids when they get older. Hip surgeries, wrist surgeries, ankle surgeries … I want to play with them when they are 10, 12, 15 years old.”

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