Guilty! I, like countless other parents, have the awful habit of trying to make things easier for my children. Forsaking necessities for myself, in exchange for the purchase of cool clothes or dance tickets, by gosh... I want my kids to be happy.
There's a little Honda sitting in front of my house that doesn't seem to want to move. Should I fix it? Get it up and running so one son can take it back to school with him? A little wave of nausea overtook me as I pictured him trying to find his way to the BART, getting on the wrong line, getting off at the wrong stop, and never able to find his way home again.
When I lived in Binghamton, working til all hours of the night trying to pay down my medical bills which I amassed due to some misfortune and a lack of insurance- I found my way home every night, on a borrowed bicycle, in the dark. Tired and sometimes lonely and scared, I did it. When I think back now, about how difficult that might have seemed to anyone, I giggle a little. What I really harvested in those days was not the trial of the financial or physical difficulties, but the independence and confidence that became the weathered but durable soles of this journey.
My list of stupid mistakes, greedy horrors and broken hearts are the hill of debris on which I now stand, able to see things more easily and clearly. I have no right to deprive my children of the same. They will move forward, earning their own rights to wisdom and conviction. You can't buy wisdom and love for anyone- but you can certainly love them and hold them as they find their own rights to an authentic life.
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