With three sisters and an extremely close family, the decision to have 'Guide Parents' is not so much weighted with who our children will be bequeathed to in the event of something terrible happening (my sisters aka doting aunties would be called to arms) but rather who we really want to take an active role in 'being there' - to listen to, guide and influence our children with their presence.
It's a decision certainly not taken lightly but was fairly easy nonetheless. Hubby and I are lucky enough to be blessed with an amazing group of loving friends who are extremely open-minded, accepting and positive in mindset. I feel so happy knowing that my children will be surrounded by all of these people, knowing that their lives will be enriched with an ever so colourful group of characters from different ethnic, cultural and various religious and non-religious specific backgrounds.....
The 'Guide Parents' we have chosen hold extra-special places in our hearts for a variety of reasons, the first of which is that they have been in our lives for an extremely long time and the friendships through teenage trial and tribulations, distance and 'chasing of dreams' has strengthened to a point where we now consider them family. These are the 'get your own bloody drink and entertain yourself' type friends when they are over. No energy felt expended in their presence.
Of course we thought deeply into ethics/morals/behaviours and all that jazz.....and even knowing every juicy detail of the sordid teenage/twenties years - our answer was still so simple. Not only are each of these individuals driven with a solid head on their shoulders, these four souls are hands down the most generous, kind-hearted, loving, tolerant and 'accepting of all people' personalities. We have chosen them day after day, year after year, to be in our lives as our closest pals and now we are just adding one more feather to their 'in our eyes' cap by choosing them yet again, without expectation, to have their influence on and around our children by simply continuing to 'be there'.
Fingers crossed they accept the challenge ;)
How did you choose your children's Guide/God-Parents????
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