It’s dark now; the day over for most, ending for many,
another set to arrive before we’re ready.
Chance of showers overnight, they say, fingers crossed we don’t find
ourselves in the presence of another of those glorious spring storms like we
did last Friday evening – the kind where the skies grow eerily quiet and still,
then suddenly erupt in a rage of wind and downpour. The kind that wash away hours of hard work and carefully
planted lawn seed and deposit both in the gutter at the end of the driveway and
down the street.
But that’s how it works. You get a beautifully hot, summer day over May long-weekend
and you’re liable to pay for it with a thunderstorm – nature’s way of keeping
the balance. Mother Nature also
likes to remind you of how short your memory is too, especially on those
too-early, hot, summer days that arrive in May and you forget to consider
sunscreen while you’re raking and seeding your renewed front lawn…
We know better.
And Mother Nature knows we know better too – that’s why she keeps
throwing those same lessons at us over and over and over again. She’s just proving a point.
School’s beginning to end for many of my friends to the
south, though our kids still have a month and a bit left on their sentences
before the educational warden grants them parole. It’s the season of outdoor education now, with field days
and track meets and trips to the park for the youngest ones, for dancing and
fun in the warm weather. The grade
8 classes are planning their ‘graduation’ farewells before leaving middle school
behind for good and entering the hallways of high school for the first time
this fall.
Call me old fashioned, but I just don’t understand the pomp
and ceremony of moving from one grade into another – this is how it is supposed
to work kids. You don’t need a
dinner and dance and grad photos to mark the occasion – you save that for the
end of high school when many will exit the halls of education never to return,
and those that choose to continue their pursuit of knowledge will find
themselves thrust into a world for which they may not be prepared. This is just the end of the
eighth grade; four more to go until you’ve accomplished something.
But still, there they are, the 13 and 14 year olds, too young to be
adults, and too old to be kids, yet wanting both at the same time. The girls have chosen their gowns and
corsages, hoping, longing, needing to be asked to the dance by the cute object
of their wistful affection; he’s oblivious to them of course, a pack animal
coming into his own, surrounded by a gang of similar-minded, young man-boys,
their thoughts alternating constantly between music, video games, sports and
girls, caught in a dizzying whirl of adolescent inattention. All of them squarely in the sights of life’s
best and worst times.
But we’ve made them this way, all of us: parents and
teachers and the media and society in general. We’ve coddled them, given them false hopes and empty, hollow
promises when what they needed to learn were some harsh, hard realities. The real world doesn’t reward mediocrity,
it’s an unfair collection of lessons and suffering, survived by those that can
ride the waves and chart a course despite the storms and bad weather. It offers riches and joy and prosperity
to those willing to seek them – in whatever form they take – but it just
doesn’t hand them over because you managed to stumble across them. Hard work and doing what is required to
get the job done aren’t necessarily for the faint of heart, but they shouldn’t
be shied away from or looked down upon, and they certainly shouldn’t be
concepts foreign to our children, lest we want to keep housing them and feeding
them until they turn forty…
Kids aren’t stupid, they understand the game of life, and
they play a mean hand when forced.
The trouble is not enough of us are forcing them to play those
hands. Lavish celebrations for
passing grade 8? Please. I’m surprised we aren’t paying them for test
scores. I understand wanting to
celebrate the end of that portion of your school life but let’s keep things in
perspective, shall we? Why do we
feel the need to rush the adult world on them? I know they want to become a part of that world as quickly
as they can, God knows the media thrives on feeding them images and stereotypes
of adult needs and wants and desires, but that’s no excuse.
As parents we want to keep our children safe and free from
harm and pain if we can – that’s the job and responsibility we signed up
for. But we were also charged with
shaping them into productive members of society, who will be able to think and
act for themselves, guided by principles of fairness and empathy, respect and
responsibility. And part of that
guidance means letting them fall every now and then so they can learn to get
back up on their own. We do it
when we teach them to ride a bicycle – we don’t wrap them in bubble wrap and
pillows and send them off to wobble down the street without training wheels –
no, we watch their progress and remove those wheels when they demonstrate the
right amount of skill and aptitude, then run along side guiding the seat,
providing just enough trust and encouragement to keep them pedaling forward,
and then we slowly let go…
They will fall.
They may get hurt. But they
will learn to ride. And they will
be successful at it. It’s the same
with life. Kids need to fall, they
need to get hurt, and they need to learn from their mistakes. But they need those things in a
constructive framework that supports their growth and development, from
everyone who has a share at stake in their final outcome – parents, teachers,
society at large, all of us.
Don’t sweet-talk your child – they can see right through
that, and they will take advantage of it and ride that wave as long as it keeps
cresting. And the further they
float down stream, the harder it becomes to pull them back to this side of
shore. Don’t pander to them in the
name of safety and dangerous, scary worlds – that’s fear based guidance and it
has never developed anything except more fear. You reap what you sow.
So why not sow some kindness and attention and respect and honesty. You owe them at much.
Sometimes you may have to scrape those seeds off the
neighbor’s driveway and put them back where they belong, where they can grow
into healthy, strong, shoots, under your watchful, caring eyes. Is it the easy way? Hell no. But it’s doing what is required to get
the job done. Enjoy the grade
eight graduation dinners and dances, celebrate the fact that your children are
growing up, but let’s not forget the lessons we’ve known all along, though we
seem to keep forgetting again and again.
Nature loves balance; kids need to fall, and I need to
remember sunscreen.
