And a Dorothy Hamill Haircut
A friend of mine recently observed that her kids will not be Olympic Athletes. Thay have not had the early chidlhood lessons needed to be figure skating champions, for example. She is not willing to make the sacrifices that Olympic atheletes in training parents make (or at least the ones that they tell stories about).
There has been a shift in my generation as we lose touch with ourselves and focus everything on the kids. I was at a soccer game with a like-minded mom friend once who commented that she doesn't remember her parents following her around to her activities, she followed them. She would hang out at the bowling alley while her parents bowled, for example. Her parents didn't arrange play dates for her, they took her along to their friends' house so the adults could play cards and the kids were shoved together out of convenience, not out of planning.
My kids all went to a really nice school in a really nice neighborhood with a bunch of parents who need to get a life. ;-)
I am on my second high school kid now and it is painful. I realize now that you get a break from preschool through middle school. High school is where your heart aches and you lay awake at night worrying about them. It feels a bit like when she was a baby. In some ways she is more work now. It is also where you start to let go. And I realize that it is on purpose. I am shoved away and blocked out and we separate out of necessity. She is preparing both of us to be separate people. I don't plan her playdates anymore.
I am not a huge fan of the Winter Olympics. I turned the Olympics on this week while I was folding laundry. Slowly the kids gravitated to me. They talked to me. Even the teen.
We talked about the Turkish skater whose parents gave up their jobs and lives in Turkey to move to Canada to help their daughter train. There are a LOT of stories like that lately when it comes to the Olympics. I don't remember it always being that way. I am not sure if it is the times we live in or just my perspective as a parent. I talked to them about the Cold War and the Soviet Union. I described a government that tested and evaluated children from an early age to determine aptitude. Athletes, dancers, academics - were routed and trained and raised differertly. (And incidentally, did I make all of this up? Is it just Cold War Lore?) The kids were fascinated. We had a great conversation about talent and the role of the government and the role of parents.
Earlier in the week I had a terse conversation about the life long consequences of bad chocies with the teen. I talked with her about my hopes for her. (They do not include Olympic Gold. We're focusing a little lower here.) What I realized the night that we all gathered around the laundry baskets and watched cross country skiing and bobsledding, is that what I want most of all is to have a relationship with my kids. I want them to love me and think about me and hang out with me. We try and make that happen by bringing fruit snacks to soccer practice and painting sets at the high school and standing in the rain at endless sporting events. Can't the government just take care of this parenting thing for me?
There has been a shift in my generation as we lose touch with ourselves and focus everything on the kids. I was at a soccer game with a like-minded mom friend once who commented that she doesn't remember her parents following her around to her activities, she followed them. She would hang out at the bowling alley while her parents bowled, for example. Her parents didn't arrange play dates for her, they took her along to their friends' house so the adults could play cards and the kids were shoved together out of convenience, not out of planning.
My kids all went to a really nice school in a really nice neighborhood with a bunch of parents who need to get a life. ;-)
I am on my second high school kid now and it is painful. I realize now that you get a break from preschool through middle school. High school is where your heart aches and you lay awake at night worrying about them. It feels a bit like when she was a baby. In some ways she is more work now. It is also where you start to let go. And I realize that it is on purpose. I am shoved away and blocked out and we separate out of necessity. She is preparing both of us to be separate people. I don't plan her playdates anymore.
I am not a huge fan of the Winter Olympics. I turned the Olympics on this week while I was folding laundry. Slowly the kids gravitated to me. They talked to me. Even the teen.
We talked about the Turkish skater whose parents gave up their jobs and lives in Turkey to move to Canada to help their daughter train. There are a LOT of stories like that lately when it comes to the Olympics. I don't remember it always being that way. I am not sure if it is the times we live in or just my perspective as a parent. I talked to them about the Cold War and the Soviet Union. I described a government that tested and evaluated children from an early age to determine aptitude. Athletes, dancers, academics - were routed and trained and raised differertly. (And incidentally, did I make all of this up? Is it just Cold War Lore?) The kids were fascinated. We had a great conversation about talent and the role of the government and the role of parents.
Earlier in the week I had a terse conversation about the life long consequences of bad chocies with the teen. I talked with her about my hopes for her. (They do not include Olympic Gold. We're focusing a little lower here.) What I realized the night that we all gathered around the laundry baskets and watched cross country skiing and bobsledding, is that what I want most of all is to have a relationship with my kids. I want them to love me and think about me and hang out with me. We try and make that happen by bringing fruit snacks to soccer practice and painting sets at the high school and standing in the rain at endless sporting events. Can't the government just take care of this parenting thing for me?
posted by Lea at 6:27 AM
1 Comments:
The generational discrepancies and differences are really interesting. I never realized the switch...but My parents were the ones who took ME with THEM, too...but then later in life they came to things WE did...mostly my brother's sporting events. I didn't do much in school but ace my classes.
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