On Being the Voice of Reason
Sometimes it’s a mom, sometimes it’s a dad, but hopefully at least one of them steps up as the go-to V.O.R. in the family. The one who says, “you’re right, son, that’s a REALLY cool bunk bed with a built-in desk underneath that we’ll have to put together all by ourselves, but you’ll outgrow in two years,” or to his daughter, “sweetie, frogs are so cute, I agree, but are you honestly claiming that you will commit to buying them a diet of live crickets once a week to feed to them every other day, and that you will maintain the live crickets until they are fed to the frogs?”
Every now and then, however, the Voice (in our family, it is almost always mine) might stand down and let the hard life lessons be learned. Needless to say, we are the proud owners of a 2-year old bunk bed with built-in desk that is now pretty much outgrown (along with the burnt orange bedroom walls and Longhorn comforter and lamp and signs and…wow, it’s truly astonishing what they can do with colors and logos these days). And 2 still-living frogs in a junior high girl’s bedroom for the past two+ years. And until this past weekend, a hedgehog that was painstakingly researched, habitat fully furnished, hour and a half road trip taken for his purchase from a breeder, and then resold due to the realities of actually taking it out and playing with it every day with a busy school schedule and the demanding attention needs of a newly rescued one-year old dog. The hedgie (“Dudley” was the name bestowed upon it by my son) was successfully transferred after an all-too brief month to a mom of a girl with dogs and cats and bunnies. Then promptly renamed “Google,” after her daughter’s tool of choice for her research. God help her.
Sure, you could fight the battles of authority and experience that many parents fought and continue to fight with their kids. The ones that my parents fought with me, and I with them. What do kids learn from those skirmishes? A couple of things: first, the day will come when the kid gets to make their own choices and learn their own lessons, and trust me, lessons and limits and consequences are far better learned in elementary and junior high than in college; and second, that they are not to question authority, they are not to challenge the status quo, the way things have always been done. Honestly, who wants to live in a world full of THAT? So why would we train our kids to be that way, the way many of our parents trained us to be, when our kids are the ones who will one day grow up and be in charge?
No, give me the kid who’s done the freaky things, made the mistakes, learned the hard (but best) way, and as a result, is much better equipped to keep changing the world for the (hopefully) better. The kid who knows that life is not, nor should it be, lived in a museum, but rather in the most spectacular art studio ever created: the world. I’ll take the one who breaks stuff and then builds even better (or at least different) stuff. We’re doing our best to raise two of them. God help us.
