My Lunar Lander Parents
No helicopter hovering for them.
I remember watching with friends late at night on July 20, 1969, the touchdown of the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander Eagle.
The journey from the Earth to the moon had taken the Apollo 11 crew of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins three days. After another day inside the moon’s orbit, Armstrong and Aldrin guided the Eagle to the Sea of Tranquility. It took 6 hours and 39 minutes.
Lunar Landers began their journey from a long distance. They arrived very infrequently. Between 1969 and 1972, there were six lunar landings. When they did, it was with a flourish.
That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
Yesterday I was back on the college campus I taught for 33 years. It’s final exam week. Students were out and about, talking on their phones. From experience, I know many were talking to a parent.
Helicopter parenting, I thought.
A helicopter is always close by.
Hovering.
Lunar Landers are different.
Sitting atop the Saturn V rocket, the Eagle was 238,900 miles from the moon when it started its journey.
When it arrived, it did not hover — and soon departed — rarely returning.
My parents were more like Lunar Landers than helicopters. I was raised in the fifties and sixties. My mother was a stay-at-home mom who took care of her three sons.
With not a hint of hovering. Except on yardwork Thursdays during the summer.
My father was an engineer whose company, Bendix, helped design the landing gear for the Apollo 11 lunar lander. My dad, pictured on the left below, worked on the Saturn V fuel systems.
He spent a lot of time in Houston during the 1960s.
On a typical summer day, I would say goodbye to my mom in the morning, get on my bike with my baseball glove hooked over the handlebar, and spend the day playing in a local park with friends. She knew where I was going, but I don’t recall her ever asking what I did. Or me telling her.
I asked Barrie, a friend my age, about his childhood parental experience.
I would leave our west-end home by 5:30 a.m. to serve morning mass at the Kahl Home. My mother was undoubtedly aware of my early morning trek…but it was not until later reminiscing that she learned that I would often hop on a slow-moving freight train to quicken the trip!
Sometimes, I wanted my mom to hover. There was the day I started a fight with another paperboy who picked his papers up at the same corner. He was tougher than I thought, and I went home with a cut lip. I must have complained to my mom because she said I needed to learn to handle my problems.
Around the same time, my dad sent me the same message. My 6th-grade teacher and I did not get along. Exasperated one day, she pushed me into the cloakroom against a coat hook. I went home with a Band-Aid on my forehead.
This time, the Eagle landed. That evening my non-Catholic, agnostic, and Apollo Space Program father went to talk with Sister Robert Cecil.
Returning an hour or so later, my dad said to me.
Paul, throughout your life, you will meet people you must learn to deal with. Sister Robert Cecile is one of them.
There are many routes to successful parenting — helping mold children into adults who take responsibility for their lives.
Who no longer need a Lunar Lander or helicopter.
My mom and dad discovered one of those paths.
That’s one tiny benefit to humankind and one giant leap for me.
