My mother informs me that I was hard and demanding of my children. I saw it otherwise. As with most parents, I had high expectations for my children. I wanted my children to strive for excellence in school and every activity they engaged in. I wanted to see them earn recognition for their hard work, drive and self-discipline. I guess secretly, I wanted them to be a lot like me.
My mother goes on to say, she wishes she had pushed me and my siblings harder. As a parent, regardless how old you are, you often wonder, what if…? What if I did this or that differently, would my child be better because of it or would there have been a different outcome in my child’s growth and development?
In retrospect, I look at my role as a father with my daughter and son and also how my parents raised me and my siblings. It seems that both my father and I were strictest with the eldest and more lenient with the youngest. I was very fortunate that neither of my children exhibited behavior that required my intervention, and my daughter will tell you just the look I gave her was enough to keep her on the straight and narrow.
Last month, I overheard a mother talk about how proud she was of her daughter. Her teenage daughter had slipped a roll of LifeSavers into her pants pocket in a store without paying for it. On the way home the daughter told her mom that she had put the candy in her pocket and wanted to go back to the store and pay for it. The mother took the daughter back to the store and the daughter went to the cashier to pay for the candy and confess that she had “accidently” taken the candy without paying for it. The cashier quizzed the young lady about why she put the candy in her pocket to begin with and did not acknowledge the good deed she did by coming back to pay for the candy. The mother was not happy with the cashier’s response. It sounds a bit twisted to me as to what lessons are being passed on from the mom to the daughter.
I tell this story because I recall another conversation I had with a guy I played soccer with for a decade or more. He was talking to me about his grown daughter who had just moved to Florida. This conversation was about 11 years ago, which would make my daughter close to the time of getting her driver’s license. I asked what advice he could lend about raising a child to adulthood. His response was simple and direct. Provide your child with a safe harbor, unconditional love, your culture and values that clearly mark right from wrong and leave the rest to God. Once they leave the nest you can only hope they will take what you gave them in earnest and choose a path that gives them success and happiness. Be aware that they may choose an alternate path. Just know the path they choose is their choice and not yours. That is their induction to adulthood and they have to experience it themselves.
Dr. Spock gave us a guide for the early years. But I could not find a handbook, recipe or roadmap for the years that followed. As a parent I hope I provided the foundation and platform for my children to make the right choice(s). As a parent, I will still wonder what if…
Welcome to adulthood my son. Happy 21st birthday!
