Teach Your Parents Well

Dear Readers,

We learn so much from our children. What I have had the good fortune to learn is that my children give me strength and confidence I didn't know I had. I have realized over the years and through experience that I can do things I didn't think I could, simply because I need to for my children. Through their innocence, needs and dependence on parents or others who influence them, our children help us realize we can do things, that without them we would be unable to do.

We can be masters at manufacturing in our minds, a barrage of excuses to ourselves to rationalize our deficiencies. We think we are too fearful, too uneducated, too weak, too shy, too technically challenged, etc... etc... etc... When our children need our help, we can find ourselves effortlessly doing what we had supposed we were incapable of for whatever excuse we had fabricated to keep us from ever even trying. We can come to this realization through routine interactions.

From as far back as I can recall, jumping off that dock into Chandos Lake was one of the most absolutely gleeful activities throughout my childhood and still is to today. With my brother, Sean, and my cousins, Margaret and Karen, I could spend hours every day of the blessed time we spent together at Chandos, jumping off the dock, splashing into the lake and swimming around to the ladder to do it all over again and again and again. I just had to be sure to never let my feet touch the sandy bottom of the lake in the shallows as I made my way around to the ladder. That would have been too scary. When, heaven forbid, I did accidentally touch that murkiness, I would shudder in horror and let out a screech of terror, fearing that whatever was lurking in the soft soggy sand would surely swallow my vulnerable appendage. I carried the fear with me into adulthood. It was no trouble at all for me to uphold my belief, until something changed my perspective that is...

My epiphany occurred when I was at my grandmother's cottage on Chandos Lake. In all the years I had been jumping off my grandmother's dock into Chandos Lake I had painstakingly ensured my feet did not touch the bottom of the lake. With parenthood comes challenges. To coax my toddler to gleefully jump off the dock, I quickly realized it would be a tricky endeavour, unless I could stand on my own two feet to be there for my child. When children were depending on me to be there for them while they were learning to jump off the dock and make their own splash into the lake, it became more and more difficult to keep my own feet safe from the danger that was lurking in the murky bottom. It was difficult to tread water and dog paddle while coaxing my little treasures that there was "nothing" to be afraid of. "Just jump in," I would say. "I'll be here to catch you."

What I would catch occasionally was myself stoically asserting, "There's nothing to be afraid of," while I was madly treading away to keep my feet up and safe from whatever it was I was so afraid of. When our own children need us to be able to do something that had previously seemed impossible, we find we suddenly are quite capable. I just had to finally put my foot down. That is, I just put both feet down on the bottom with a quick little grimace and decided if others had been able to touch down without losing an appendage, I could too.

The benefits were manifold to say the least, although I didn’t immediately realize the magnitude of the leap forward I made with one small step down. Although the lake bottom was a little squishier than I would have liked it to have been, the secure foothold to step up to my responsibilities was quite firm. I am so grateful to my children for helping me plant my feet firmly on the ground to discover with full confidence that the benefits outweigh the risk of harm.

The gift of confidence we receive through parenthood is ours to give back and instill in our own children so that they too can have their feet planted firmly on the ground to stand tall and march proudly from where they are to where they want to be. As children teach their parents well, we have the glory of teaching our children well. It’s beautiful.

Ardently,

Kathleen