Saturday, October 23, 2010
12:26 AM | Posted by
Unknown
I stepped back and looked at my life from the perspective of decades later.
When I was a little child the world revolved around me. There was no trouble but in the moment, and it was only mine. When I got older I was aware that my brothers and sisters had some problems, but mine were still of the greatest importance. When I married I adopted all my wife's problems. Now I had to learn to deal with not only mine, but hers and ours as well. And I thought being a teenager had been tough.
When the children came along, another layer of trouble was added to my life. There were regular trips to the hospital for sickness, cuts, breaks, braces, you name it. As the children approached coming of age I began to recognize that it did me no good to try to answer for their mistakes, and trying to be personally responsible for their problems was more than I could bear.
This was when I came up with the term, "divorcing your children." At some point every parent needs to stop feeling personally responsible for every decision each child makes. Some sort of separation has to take place. The parent eventually needs to learn that whatever they had done to teach and train up that child would have to suffice. Yes we continue to feel the need to counsel our children, but we can no longer take personal responsibility for every action they take. And some of them take some pretty stupid actions. I don't know why they do that, because no one in my generation did such things ...
Anyway, the children grew up and started to have children. They made the same types of mistakes I made at their age, and I can counsel, but can't allow myself to own their problems. That is hard to do. I so want them to make better choices and be happier because they bipassed my old mistakes. I'm not so encouraged when I see some of my children making mistakes that I never dreamed of making. All I can think of to say is, "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid." But what can you do but continue to love them and try to help them find their way out of the results of their own actions, knowing that many of those results will haunt them for decades and generations to come.
Finally, the grandchildren start to grow up and start to marry, and the process starts all over again. Where am I now? I am on the outside. The great grandparent becomes an almost silent witness to the results of our parenting methods, those of our children, and those of their children. No longer could I even possibly take responsibility for all those people and their personal decisions. Now I have to watch as my posterity moves on without me. My family has hit critical mass, it carries on without my help and continues to grow. As the once great and all important person, I have progressed to partner, parent, family patriarch, and then faded into a person that little children know only by old photographs and family stories. But I watch, and I see. As a couple we see our traits, habits, issues, and strengths being passed from one generation down to another, mixing with other families along the way. Part of us will always be in them, though our time has come and gone. We have lead, directed, prayed for, blessed, and nurtured our family the only way we knew how at the time. Would we do it differently if we had the chance to do it again? I certainly hope so. If I didn't do it differently then what have I really learned from the experience?
When I was a little child the world revolved around me. There was no trouble but in the moment, and it was only mine. When I got older I was aware that my brothers and sisters had some problems, but mine were still of the greatest importance. When I married I adopted all my wife's problems. Now I had to learn to deal with not only mine, but hers and ours as well. And I thought being a teenager had been tough.
When the children came along, another layer of trouble was added to my life. There were regular trips to the hospital for sickness, cuts, breaks, braces, you name it. As the children approached coming of age I began to recognize that it did me no good to try to answer for their mistakes, and trying to be personally responsible for their problems was more than I could bear.
This was when I came up with the term, "divorcing your children." At some point every parent needs to stop feeling personally responsible for every decision each child makes. Some sort of separation has to take place. The parent eventually needs to learn that whatever they had done to teach and train up that child would have to suffice. Yes we continue to feel the need to counsel our children, but we can no longer take personal responsibility for every action they take. And some of them take some pretty stupid actions. I don't know why they do that, because no one in my generation did such things ...
Anyway, the children grew up and started to have children. They made the same types of mistakes I made at their age, and I can counsel, but can't allow myself to own their problems. That is hard to do. I so want them to make better choices and be happier because they bipassed my old mistakes. I'm not so encouraged when I see some of my children making mistakes that I never dreamed of making. All I can think of to say is, "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid." But what can you do but continue to love them and try to help them find their way out of the results of their own actions, knowing that many of those results will haunt them for decades and generations to come.
Finally, the grandchildren start to grow up and start to marry, and the process starts all over again. Where am I now? I am on the outside. The great grandparent becomes an almost silent witness to the results of our parenting methods, those of our children, and those of their children. No longer could I even possibly take responsibility for all those people and their personal decisions. Now I have to watch as my posterity moves on without me. My family has hit critical mass, it carries on without my help and continues to grow. As the once great and all important person, I have progressed to partner, parent, family patriarch, and then faded into a person that little children know only by old photographs and family stories. But I watch, and I see. As a couple we see our traits, habits, issues, and strengths being passed from one generation down to another, mixing with other families along the way. Part of us will always be in them, though our time has come and gone. We have lead, directed, prayed for, blessed, and nurtured our family the only way we knew how at the time. Would we do it differently if we had the chance to do it again? I certainly hope so. If I didn't do it differently then what have I really learned from the experience?
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