Progress In Parenting

 

Progress in Parenting

Its odd that I should be writing about this. It’s not how I had ever envisioned my life, now or ever.  As I awoke this morning  hearing the rain slowly dissipate for a few minutes I prayed in thanking God I once again arrived awake for another day.  Its just a habit I have.

I told a man recently, who didn’t know as much about me as I’d thought he’d had. How I was supposed to be dead a number of times and somehow I’d survived. We sat on my back deck and chatted that evening.

Over two decades ago, my then running coach Tom Fleming said to me one day in his running store, “Jody, you have more lives than a cat.” The stunned look on his face said it all.  I then wondered, ‘Really? Did I?’ He saw my expression and continued, “Yeah.” And then shook his head. You never know how people view you from the outside.

My husband used to tell me that I astonished him with all that I did. I wasn’t impressed with myself. That was because I thought he did just as much, but just did it in a different way. I also thought people had secret lives that I knew nothing about. I only knew what I’d experienced. The people I’d experienced in forced or voluntary relationships. I use the word ‘forced’, because when you’re born, you land where you land. I won’t get into the philosophies on that one. It runs too deep for what I’m presenting here.

Going back to my second thought I awoke to this morning. As I laid in bed, now just hours after dropping off our youngest to college for her second year. What I realized once again, but on a different level of parenting. It was as much as I was ‘raised by wolves, so to speak’. I realized that I am nothing like my parents or most of my ancestors in parenting children.

My dad was hands off. Both parents were alcoholics and fair to say, ‘yes, they were drug addicts’. Never my mother’s incredible mental health issues from abuse before and during her marriage. Somehow, I avoided all that as an adult, as wife, and as a mother. I remained a straight arrow all my life. I wondered, ‘how?’

So, a few nights ago having a conversation with this person whom I thought knew much of certain parts of who I was. He was astonished when I told him what I did as a child every night. And how I knew in a sense, that I’d always need to look over my shoulder. Too, what I’d learned fully by Easter before my nineth birthday was, ‘No one could ever really protect me from much’. And I’ll add, especially from heinous crimes. It was not only not in their interest. It was that  most people are just so unaware in much of anything outside of themselves. Even one’s own parents.

I did begin to realize this fact by age seven on a deep level. I will venture to say I knew so on some level by age four.  As I’d reflected this morning on the helping our daughters get to college, moving them in and such.

Our oldest was most independent. I had this discussion with her yesterday after dropping our youngest off at college. I realized when I was in high school, no one cared. I could’ve not pictured anyone helping send me or any other girls in our family off to college—which to me included moving them in, paying for them, helping with housing at any point and time.

As my parents, my older brother and relatives near and far—some with children, some not, implied in having had no interest in my future.  They had not only not attended my graduation from high school. Too, my parents had no clue I’d even made the Honor Roll by the end of my junior year of high school and remained at that level of grades till my graduation.

I remained ‘cool’ back then with all that. For I was a girl, and my job was to keep quiet and provide them with grandchildren. Yes, all that did not hinder my will to serve my country. Conversely, by age five it lit a fire in me. I figured that was what I should do with the remainder of my life after high school. For what else was there?

I was fortunate enough to be born when I was—That time frame gave me two options as a woman back then. I could do the traditional marriage and child raising thing or now I could do my heart’s desire and become a US Marine. Becoming a US Marine suited me. A dream come true. I may get the chance to protect the rights and sanctity for others and it would be an honorable duty. An honorable life to live—what little of life there may be left.

In all of this, I concluded this morning—The beauty of forward thinking and progression is imperative for a society to flourish in innovation and repairs to humanity. We parents now should know better. Unlike my ancestors and many others in our country—let us cater to our children enough to have a higher education for that innovation. That invention and innovation is not to be curtailed to one gender, one generation, one race, one creed, one color, one ethnicity, etc.... Because when we curtail the ideology of who could be innovative, we stymie the development of humanity.

Let us be more progressive in our parenting. Learning to listen better, perhaps accept their new ideas, disagreeing or agreeing. Too, maybe someone younger than us may still need our guidance. Yet, if we mentor and/or parent correctly—the children will have the mind to better our society because we let them.--- Jody-Lynn Reicher