Looking For Calm

“We have to resist following them into the wilderness and trying to make it safer and more civilized. Every cell in our body will want to protect them from the hurt that comes from standing alone. But denying our children the opportunity to gain wisdom directly from the trees and dance in the moonlight with other high, lonesome renegades and limping outlaws is about our own fear and comfort. Their heart needs to know the wild too.”

I am wide awake and thinking about our children and all children. I am thinking about raising them and the challenges, joys, highs, lows, anxiety, wonder, frustration, loneliness, isolation, fear, elation, hope that is necessary, beauty, faith that is paramount, love that exists, and the growth that ensues as we parent. We have such little control, despite our human nature to think that we can hold on and direct and project our needs and wants onto our children. I remember the first time I let Jamie ride his bike from Horace Mann to Lab. He was in the 6 th grade. I had ridden the route with him- Out to Nebraska, down to Arizona and onto MacArthur. Lis Braswell, the special education head at MANN who was a gift beyond measure to Jamie, saw him on his bike one morning. She stopped me outside and said, “What are you doing letting him ride on these crazy streets all the way to the Lab School? (I know her comments were out of care and deep love for our son.) My reply was, “Lis, I have to let him go.” Which as I write this, makes me teary because this is what raising children is all about… preparing them to launch- helping them learn to love- teaching and modeling respect for other- dusting them off when they fall and sending them out again- honoring and respecting their individuality as gifts which are inherently theirs. We need to point out to them gently sometimes and more firmly at others how important it is to be kind and respectful and tell them when they have strayed from the path. We watch them struggle and make poor decisions in the same way that we did as young people. And we cannot fix or make the path easier or less bumpy. We cannot lessen the inherent challenges of growing up. We walk alongside our children, letting them know we love them and are here for them but not to make their lives more simple or smooth. Because without these bumps, we cannot grow. And we learn as much from the struggle, and more, than we do from what comes without much effort. I believe that we become more resilient beings as a result of sitting with, and wrestling with, the difficult, the challenging and that which can be hurtful.