Walk your child

I was walking Shadow today, like usual. Something hit me (figuratively), and I've come up with a new comparison:

Walking a dog is like parenting.

Okay, hear me out. Let's consider the walk itself as the life; the path its figurative counterpart. You're letting your dog go where he wants, and go where he needs, but ultimately you need to stick to your path. Here's where it got me. Shadow sometimes takes his sweet time at some spots. Sometimes he likes to wander off. I constantly have to pull him back so we can get home and not waste time. And that's it. When you're bringing up kids, you need to find that balance between letting the child do what they want and keeping them on track. Just walking the path is boring and you don't get a lot out of it, but letting Shadow sniff and walk everywhere would just be wasting time. It just makes sense to me!