I should first note that part of my lack of tearfulness over B’s graduation and impending departure for college is, well, “been there, done that.” My step-daughter L, whom I helped raise from the time she was 7 when I first married her mom, is in all respects my daughter (in my mind). She traveled the world with my ex and I and never lived apart from us until she left for college. She’s now married, has completed grad school, and is teaching in Virginia, but I remember her graduation from Quantico HS, lo, these long nine years gone, very clearly. So, hard to get too weepy over B’s, since (a) we’ve done this once, and (b) we’re only halfway there (got two more coming down the pike). So, I’ve seen this movie before…
But now the real reasons for my apparent aloofness about these moments. Some first principles – none of us chose to be created/birthed/born. We had no say in the matter. Two people got together, and either by conscious choice or too much alcohol, had one of those conversations 90 days later or so that goes like this:
“Well, whaddya mean ‘you’re late’?”
“I’m late. Very late. As in, I didn’t ‘have the painters in’ for the last two months…” Long pause while woman assesses man’s capability to understand the quotey-fingers and deal with the implications. Additional pause while man’s brain works like he’s a sixth-grader trying to understand an algebra word-problem.
“You don’t think you’re pregnant, do you?”
“Uh-huh,” tapping her foot and rolling her eyes.
“Oh.”
Now I recognize there are variations on this (joyful after many years of not being able to conceive, happy to be pregnant together, etc…) but whatever the flavor, the only conclusion from this is that the obligations and responsibilities in the subsequent parent-child relationship flow downhill, entirely. Let me take a moment to flesh that out.
One: When they’re born, they owe you nothing. Two: You owe them everything. Three: This continues until they are self-sufficient. Four: It is your sacred obligation, under any rational system of ethics, morals, or religion, to get them to be physically, emotionally, and intellectually self-sufficient.
Four is the one that I think most people just whiff on. Kids are not there for your emotional support or gratification. It is the exact opposite. You want emotional gratification then you should have bought a dog or a cat – probably a dog. I listen to more people – parents – say absolutely, morally repugnant things about how their kids “owe” them this or that because the parents raised them and I want to puke, or punch the parent in the head. I think to myself “there goes another child facing a lifetime of emotional blackmail…”
And let me get the other caveats out of the way. I love my parents. I have a great relationship with both – loving, supportive, and emotionally satisfying. I also am eternally grateful for what they have done to support me and help me achieve what I have. I owe them both genetically and environmentally. But my sense of respect and admiration and obligation to them and for them flows from their selflessness in raising me, not because they told me “you owe us” for having you and raising you. I can’t ever recall a single time in my life that my parents uttered those words, not even joking. I take that back, I think my mom may have joked a few times to my sister and I about it, but it was clearly a joke – in fact, in some way, her ironic reference to such an idea is probably what instilled in me this notion that I’m writing about – that parents have the obligations and duties to the children.
Now you, dear reader, may be saying, “Well, no shit, parents have to raise their kids, that’s not earth-shattering. Hell, the law even requires it.” And that may be true, but how often do you hear parents lay a guilt trip on their kids about how grateful the child should be for the parent doing nothing more than the minimum required to make the child emotionally healthy and stable, and intellectually capable of self-sufficiency into their adulthood? And if it’s so straightforward, then why are childhood obesity rates skyrocketing? Is that teaching a kid the skills they need to be self-sufficient? And why are teen pregnancy rates what they are? And how about drug and alcohol abuse? So, no, it’s not clear to me based upon the massive amount of problems facing American youth that what I’m saying is so clear that it constitutes “common sense.”
Now, to return to the happy(ier) subject of my own daughter, B, who matriculates at a very good school in Boston in the fall. I had the delight of taking her and her boyfriend to breakfast before her prom last week, and talking to two young adults as peers, as fellow travelers on this road we’re all on. Yes, I’ve got some more mileage and I hope they’ll take advice from me and learn from my experiences, but it’s no different than what I can learn from someone in their 60’s. The best part was that our conversations were comfortable – we exchanged stories and experiences, talked about classes and cars, travel and music, and I could not have been happier for both of them. And my pride isn’t of the “look what I did!” variety.
I don’t want applause because all I’ve done is the minimum that I was obliged to do the moment that my ex- and I had the conversation that I’ve recounted above, or one similar to it. Mission mostly accomplished – because there will no doubt be more moments where she needs our advice and mentoring as she continues along her way.
And now here’s the really cool part – because if everything I’ve described above makes parenting sound like some bleak, monastic task, it’s not. Now comes the time when she chooses to seek out our counsel on her own. And if we’ve done what I described above, she will want to know our opinion and advice before she makes big decisions, and that’s the payoff. It’s in those moments when she calls and says, “Dad, I need tires on my car, but I’ve never done that and I don’t want to get taken… can you come with me to the tire shop?” Folks, I get weepy thinking about how my heart melted to get that phone call. And how cool it was to get a coffee and talk – as equals – with this wonderful young lady who is carrying half of my DNA while we waited for the tires to get aligned.
But you don’t get to that moment by demanding it, or “guilting” them into it… and if you do, I guarantee you that it has nothing like the flavor, the savor, of that moment I got in Starbucks with my daughter a few days ago.
DFS
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| Prom night |