Being a parent can’t be an easy job. You have to provide for, take care of, and deal with all of your child’s phases for 18 years. You try your best and hope and pray that your child becomes a good person when it is all said and done. Being a parent has to be one of the hardest and most rewarding jobs there is, but being the child is not without its benefits.

Being the child means that you have to listen to your parents, no matter how old you are. Whether your parents are telling you to clean your room when you’re 16 or they’re telling you to consider maybe not spending the money on that trip you’ve been saving for when you’re 20, you listen to your parents. Granted, as you get older, your parents stop giving orders and instead offer some advice.

Being the child means you love your parents unconditionally; they did give you life after all. It doesn’t matter how many fights you got in with your mom about whether or not you had an attitude or how many times you got mad at your dad for making you help mow the lawn. You love your parents no matter what, even though sometimes you don’t tell them that as often as you should.

Being the child means that you want to do anything to make your parents proud. Even though you may act like you don’t care, every child secretly wants to make their parents proud. Whether it’s with grades or being the kind of person they raised you to be, every child strives to be able to say that they made their parents proud.

Being the child means you kind of dread growing up. You dread the adult world and paying your own bills and doing things on your own, but you also know that your parents prepared you for all the challenges you may come across and if you ever get stuck you know that Mom and Dad are only a phone call away.

Being the child means that you realize as you get older that you’re a lot more like your parents than you’d like to admit. Somewhere along the way, some of their traits rubbed off on you. You realize that you’re stubborn and compassionate like your Mom and you’re determined and headstrong like your Dad. You realize that your parents played a bigger part in shaping who you are than you had originally thought.

Being the child means you pick up some lessons along the way. All the little things your parents taught you while you were growing up actually sunk in, and you hope that one day when you take on the role of ‘parent’, you’ll be able to instill some of the same lessons in your child as well as your parents did.

Somewhere along the way, your parents became your role models and you never really stop learning from them. After all, you can never stop being their child any more than they can stop being your parents. It’s kind of a lifetime commitment.