When one reaches the age where good days are often followed by not such good ones, we tend to take advantage of those that are high in energy and low in pain. But doing too much often results in sore backs and hips that heal more slowly than they once did.
This Mother’s Day, I learned the value of hiding the aching joints from my adult children as they worry about my health more than I do.
I was fortunate to have grown up in a great neighborhood with parents who put more emphasis on stimulating creativity than enforcing safety. What few rules my older sister and I had been given were often broken, usually without incident. If found out, we were punished, but we always were told why the rules were there.
For example, my sister was riding her bicycle home from school and broke her arm when a car turning right snagged her front wheel. Thereafter, I was not permitted to ride my bike to school. I could take the streetcar then walk the remaining mile, but I didn’t see any difference. One day, I was caught riding the bike home and got bawled out for it. My excuse was that I was late and the bike was faster than the streetcar and walking. Oh, well. I did the punishment, whatever it was, and though I thought it unfair, I promptly forgot about it.
Recently, I was taken to task for writing about the D.C. parents who ran afoul of the law by allowing their six and 10-year-old siblings to walk to the neighborhood park alone. And yet, my own daughters agree with my conclusion that giving kids some freedom from supervision helps to build self-confidence, character and creativity. I doubt there will ever be agreement on this issue.
When we become parents, we tend to follow the rules we were subjected to as children. Those of us who had intelligent parents with a good sense of humor hoped to raise our own offspring using the same rules. But, I’ve been told, the world is a more dangerous place now than in olden times. There’s some truth to that, I’m sure, but there were just as many creeps and gangs back then and we learned how to avoid them.
Some parents used the whip to enforce order but a generation later that was considered cruel and could result in a trip to jail for the whipper and even placing the whippee in foster care. Personally, I find that a bit of an overreaction and more likely to put fear into young minds, fear of the police more than an aversion to strangers. And what are we teaching when we tell kids not to talk to adults they haven’t met? That their world is full of pedophiles and miscreants?
Wouldn’t it be better to teach youngsters to respect adults and their property? To have empathy for kids who are bullied or ignored by their peers? And how about explaining what may be considered rude talk or behavior? Has the word “polite” fallen out of favor?
Most children want their parents’ approval and feel hurt when they’re ignored. In my home, the way to get attention was to come up with an original idea. That certainly boosted our creativity.
And nowadays it’s the young folks who understand technology better than adults. So asking the kids for help with the PC or Nook can be very positive. One of my granddaughters taught me how to text on my “dumb” phone and how to erase those annoying messages that just wouldn’t disappear. I found that helpful and she felt important.
On this Mother’s Day, I’m sending a mental message to my mom, wherever she is, and thanking her for being a “free-range” parent. At the time, I was sure she took a hands-off approach because she didn’t care a lot about me. But after raising my own kids, I get it.
If we’re creative, kind and caring, it’s because she wasn’t a “helicopter” parent. On the rare occasions when our nanny didn’t know how to handle us, Mom would step in with just the right idea and always with humor. Our younger sister definitely inherited that from her. I think Mom understood there’s a certain amount of luck in raising children and we all survived.
So, thanks Mom; we miss you. You did right by us, and even if we wondered about you then, we know better now.