Four Wheeled Freedom
Being an American parent requires a lot of letting go. It seems like you spend your child's life letting go and you wonder what if anything you ever get to hold on to. Maybe it is simply the memories. We certainly can't hold on to our children, if we did they would never fly. They would never become the self-sufficient adults they must become in order to survive. I suppose every species confronts the same dilemma. The only difference is for most the developmental period is much shorter. A bear for example would raise and see its cub leave in a year, an elephant in two. Yet for a human being the time goes on and on as one stage turns to the next. For most of us we will spend a good quarter of our life raising our children. Arguably the time really only ends upon our own death. There is one frightening period of development all parents know we are destined for. Sometimes we like to pretend it won't happen but it will. It is running at us like a semi-truck five