I found this delightful photo online with several others showing a variety of animals with their offspring (you have to see the opossums).

Parenting comes so naturally to the animal world, but for humans there’s quite a learning curve.

What does it take to be a good parent? A writer-friend told me over the summer that when she visited her daughter and their family she was so impressed when her daughter asked her four-year-old daughter, “What is my job as a parent?” My friend said her grand-daughter immediately replied, “Your job is to love me, to teach me, and to keep me safe.”

What a perfect job description for all parents, and how wonderful that this little girl had parents who repeated it so often that she had it memorized and internalized. Hopefully this mantra will stay with her through her youth and into her own days of parenthood.

Perhaps that’s a good job description for us as human beings as well: to love each other, to learn all we can from the world around us–and then to pass it on–and to keep those closest to us as well as the fragile and vulnerable people in our world safe.

Is there something you would add?