You are an adult.

You would never chastise a child for his errors.  You would never mindlessly sabotage his future.  You would never force him to relive his past horrors, day upon day, upon day.   You would never compare him in cruelty - filling his ear with whispers of shortcomings, of failures, of limitations.  You would never remind him of all which appears to be beyond his grasp.  You would never tell him that he is ugly, that he is scarred, that he is incapable, that he is unlovable.

You would never tell a child to forgo the pursuit of a dream for the comfort of a predictability.  You would never tell a child to remain small, that those around him may remain comfortable.  You would never tell a child that his needs are secondary, that his ideas lack worth, that his very soul is flawed.

You would never tell a child to settle.

You would never tell a child to suffer.

You would never.  You would never.  You would never.

Your life is not your own.  You are an individualized expression of the one life that exists in this universe.

You are the caretaker of the very life of God.

And so it is that while we pridefully remember that each of us is the adult, we must gently remember that each of us is the child as well.