2013 was a huge year in our home. Our oldest son became an adult, at least in the eyes of the law. Our daughter, the middle child, became a teenager, and our youngest, hit double digits. In many ways 2014 will also be a monumental year. Our oldest graduates from high school at the end of May and will head off to college, out of state to boot, in August. It will be the first time we have been apart from any of our children for more than a week or two at any point in any of their, or our, lives.
Like all parents, we want the best for our children. We want them to bloom and grow. We do our best to cultivate their strengths and attempt to help them work through their challenges. Wow! This sounds like such great parenting on paper, but in reality, we just do the best we can and hope we are preparing them to be good, kind, loving, caring, compassionate, and responsible individuals. I guess this begs the question: are we preparing him nearly as much as we are attempting to prepare ourselves? I guess the answer is really that we are attempting to do both.
When I was pregnant with our oldest child, I spent my entire pregnancy in awe of what was happening. We made a person! There was an actual person growing inside me. I was terrified, but amazed nonetheless.
When our first son was born, from the instant I held him in my weary arms, I was in awe of him and, again, I was terrified. From the very beginning, I frequently wondered who thought we were responsible enough to make life-altering decisions for another human being!??? It was a crazy adventure, and all we could do was the very best we could.
We pulled on our personal experiences as children and tried to figure out how to do the "parenting thing". Now that precious baby boy is making life-altering decisions of his own: where to go to school, what to major in at the school where he will spend the next three (yes, three...he will graduate from high school with most of his freshman year completed) years, and what does he want to do after that?
As parents, we are reflecting back on our own respective college experiences. We both made choices along the way that altered our paths. Many of our choices were not very good ones...and the results directly impacted the "big picture" of our lives. I believe it is also fair to say that neither one of us ended up where we expected to be when we were moving toward the end of our senior years in high school.
That said, speaking only for myself, there is very little I would do over. My experiences have made me who I am. My not-very-well-thought-out college choice the first time through landed me where I am today. I kept moving forward. I met the man with whom I would spend, at present count, the next nineteen years of my life. We created three children.
I left home for college when I was eighteen. I left college and moved across the country before I turned nineteen. My oldest child will be four months short of nineteen when he begins his college experience. Thinking back to that darling little boy who used to look at me with unconditional love, I cannot imagine that we are sending him out into the world at large to make his own choices and pursue his own goals.
Perhaps it sounds odd that I did not say, "pursue his own dreams", but the phrasing was deliberate. Dreams are one thing, goals are another. As an adult, I believe our son is beginning to clarify his ultimate goals in life. The next year, possibly two, will probably help him work through this process.
Twenty-five years ago, had you asked me where I expected to be at forty-four years old, where I am now would not have even been a consideration. Don't get me wrong, there is very little I would change if given a "do-over". The "would haves, could haves, should haves" will bury you. To quote John Lennon, "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans". In so many ways, I know I have lived my life, rather than making plans that I could never bring to fruition. For my son, I hope he is able to do the same.
I have lived the life I have chosen, not the life others expected me to live. At some point along the way, I realized that it was my life and I had to make my own choices. As an "adult", this seemed like the logical thing to do. As a parent, I am terrified for my own child to do the same. Hypocritical? Absolutely. Hoping he learns from my/our mistakes? Absolutely. Hoping he makes his own mistakes but does not live to regret them? Without a doubt.
There are still days that I wonder who thought we were responsible enough to make life-altering decisions for other human beings. As we set our first fledgling out into the world, it is becoming clear that we need to change that mindset. We were given the privelege of making these decisions, but have we prepared him to now make life-altering decisions of his own? I guess we will see.
