A Living Road Map
In life there are sign posts everywhere. They lead us in so many directions that explain the paths and courses our lives have taken yet often, we never see them. They are like mile markers on a highway, nearly invisible unless you actually decide to open your eyes. Freud would make you look into the subconscious to understand the conscious but I don't believe you need to look that far. I think you need only look at the way we live our lives.
There is no path into our own lives as descriptive as the one exposed when you have a child. How we raise our child and the attitudes we take are shaped by our parents in so many ways. Even when we try to correct the mistakes our parents made in our own lives, we find that those mistakes inadvertently have a direct bearing on our children. Human beings seemingly by nature are prone to the negative. I am not sure why this is but it most certainly is. When we reflect upon our own lives, for some reason the negative always seems to step on the positive like an anvil falling from the sky. It seems second nature to remember the mistakes before ever considering the successes. More often than not however, the successes are there. To find them again, we need only look as far as our children.
Recently I have noticed that what I do for my son often seems to be a reflection of my own childhood. The good things come out in little ways that I do my best to repeat. To somehow create the same feeling or memory in him. Like a spiraling strand of DNA I wonder how many generations these acts have crossed. There were things in my life that shaped me and today if I look at what is happening with my son, I find those same experiences shaping him. When I was a child my parents would send me to stay with my grandparents during the summer. I don't remember how long it was but it seemed like an eternity. While my existence seemed filled with boredom during those days it was another step in a road toward independence. I was alone, without my parents to directly guide me and while decisions were being made for me, I felt as if I was making them myself.
My son and my dog are presently driving across the wide expanse that is America to visit my aunts farm in Iowa. It is a tiny farm, more a chicken refuge but a farm all the same. He is learning about the Amish, spending time with his grandfather and discovering what the world was like pre-Xbox 360. He is turning a TV on to find three channels. He is living on a landscape resembling the Wizard of Oz in color. The first day he was board out of his mind but says it seems peaceful. Maybe it was the air, maybe the simplicity of the environment but by the second day his focus changed as he spent an afternoon in an Amish hardware store. He tried to speak to a four year old Amish boy that spoke no English. He marveled at the lack of electricity and the cash register with so many keys and levers.
His grandfather and his aunt are reaching back to their own childhoods creating and visiting "Aunt Margaret's" farm with him. They are seeing the world once again through the eyes of a 13 year old boy and wondering where all the energy comes from.
Independence comes in many ways. It starts with little adventures, like the freedom to ride your bicycle around the block. To venture out of the subdivision to the nearest grocery store, cash in hand, to buy sushi. Okay, in my childhood it was a soda or a candy bar. Perhaps somethings do change. Gradually the line becomes longer and the next thing you know, they have their own job and their own life. Increasingly as I do something for my son or take him somewhere to experience something, I remember a similar experience from my own youth. I think of my mother taking me shopping or my father helping me complete a project, each loving me in their own way. I forget the conflict as the path of my child leads me in his own direction. Here and there I add my own steps that perhaps someday will become the steps of his child.
In life every child will ultimately chose their own path yet they will always look to a parent to provide direction. While the mile posts along the way might seem invisible, we know they are there as we move quickly past them. As they fade in the rear view mirror of life we look forward to the miles our journey still has to take us.
There is no path into our own lives as descriptive as the one exposed when you have a child. How we raise our child and the attitudes we take are shaped by our parents in so many ways. Even when we try to correct the mistakes our parents made in our own lives, we find that those mistakes inadvertently have a direct bearing on our children. Human beings seemingly by nature are prone to the negative. I am not sure why this is but it most certainly is. When we reflect upon our own lives, for some reason the negative always seems to step on the positive like an anvil falling from the sky. It seems second nature to remember the mistakes before ever considering the successes. More often than not however, the successes are there. To find them again, we need only look as far as our children.
Recently I have noticed that what I do for my son often seems to be a reflection of my own childhood. The good things come out in little ways that I do my best to repeat. To somehow create the same feeling or memory in him. Like a spiraling strand of DNA I wonder how many generations these acts have crossed. There were things in my life that shaped me and today if I look at what is happening with my son, I find those same experiences shaping him. When I was a child my parents would send me to stay with my grandparents during the summer. I don't remember how long it was but it seemed like an eternity. While my existence seemed filled with boredom during those days it was another step in a road toward independence. I was alone, without my parents to directly guide me and while decisions were being made for me, I felt as if I was making them myself.
My son and my dog are presently driving across the wide expanse that is America to visit my aunts farm in Iowa. It is a tiny farm, more a chicken refuge but a farm all the same. He is learning about the Amish, spending time with his grandfather and discovering what the world was like pre-Xbox 360. He is turning a TV on to find three channels. He is living on a landscape resembling the Wizard of Oz in color. The first day he was board out of his mind but says it seems peaceful. Maybe it was the air, maybe the simplicity of the environment but by the second day his focus changed as he spent an afternoon in an Amish hardware store. He tried to speak to a four year old Amish boy that spoke no English. He marveled at the lack of electricity and the cash register with so many keys and levers.
His grandfather and his aunt are reaching back to their own childhoods creating and visiting "Aunt Margaret's" farm with him. They are seeing the world once again through the eyes of a 13 year old boy and wondering where all the energy comes from.
Independence comes in many ways. It starts with little adventures, like the freedom to ride your bicycle around the block. To venture out of the subdivision to the nearest grocery store, cash in hand, to buy sushi. Okay, in my childhood it was a soda or a candy bar. Perhaps somethings do change. Gradually the line becomes longer and the next thing you know, they have their own job and their own life. Increasingly as I do something for my son or take him somewhere to experience something, I remember a similar experience from my own youth. I think of my mother taking me shopping or my father helping me complete a project, each loving me in their own way. I forget the conflict as the path of my child leads me in his own direction. Here and there I add my own steps that perhaps someday will become the steps of his child.
In life every child will ultimately chose their own path yet they will always look to a parent to provide direction. While the mile posts along the way might seem invisible, we know they are there as we move quickly past them. As they fade in the rear view mirror of life we look forward to the miles our journey still has to take us.
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