Reflections

Raising kids is an amazing proposition. Generally we willfully step into these shoes, at times by accident and occasionally we walk in them by force. I've heard 80+ year old parents say of their 60+ year old children, "You're never done being a parent." How true that is!

Overall, partnering with my wife to raise our two daughters has been an amazingly joyful experience. People tell us we have great kids. We accept the compliment and whisper a prayer that people will always see our kids this way and that things will keep going well for us and for them. I remember my mother telling me with some frequency, "The way people see you is a reflection of how they see your father and me." That has always stuck with me. I believe it did leave me with a sense of preventative "guilt," but I guess it also somewhat guided my behavioral choices.

Recently, as my own kids navigate life and choices, I find another helpful angle of reflection. When my kids make hurtful choices, I have to deal with those choices as a parent and the reflection I'm concerned about in helping them is the reflection I see of the choices I made at their age staring back at me in their behavior now. Painfully staring right back at me, I might add.

At the time, I knew some of the choices I made as a kid hurt me when I chose them. I knew they hurt my parents when they found out about those choices (and perhaps they would have been hurt even more if they had found out about other choices). I realize some of my choices even caused damage to how people saw me and my parents. But now, looking into my own kid's choices and seeing myself... that is a new level of hurt I've not experienced before. I find it fascinating that there is still pain associated with some of the choices I made growing up... a foggy, abstract mirrored reflection of the choices I made so long ago.

As parents, we protect our kids. Early on it is protection from dangers in the "outside world" and we protect from all the injuries that can be levied against them. As they grow a bit older, we guard ourselves as parents and hopefully protect them from our own neglect and missed parenting opportunities. But keeping them from hurting themselves at any age is down-right difficult, if not impossible.

I remember teaching both my kids how to ride a bike. Walking behind with my hand on the seat... then running along side... then letting go... then running closely behind... then standing and then finally, only watching from a distance (this is why bicycle training is meant for younger parents, I'm convinced!)... it was inevitable they would eventually fall, scrape a knee and come crying for Mommy and Daddy. And they did.

Teenage scrapes, adult child falls... don't necessarily show up on the surface. Sometimes the injuries are really deep and take a while to surface. When they do... reflection may be the best cure for the pain.

I find letting my own self-inflicted pain and the pain it caused others come back to the surface may be a suitable salve for aiding the hurts and pains of my own growing kids as their choices hurt themselves and others. It is reflection of a different kind. Letting the pain come back to the surface helps me see redemption from a new point of view. It allows me to at least see some good come from what was once so painfully bad.

Life gets messy... sometimes we get hurt (and we certainly hurt others) living it. But when the pain of the past potentially offers healing for the present, that may be a reflection worth making.

Your thoughts?