Monday, January 14, 2013

Do as I Say

I find it hard to believe that I say, to my daughter, almost exactly the same things that my parents used to say to me.

"When I was your age...", "When you're older you'll understand.", "When you have children of your own..."

Oh...my...God!  Am I that old?  "Where has the time gone?"  In reality, I'm NOT that old.  I'm only in my sixties.  My daughter is only in her teens.  We are separated by only four decades, plus or minus, but the differential seems like eons.

When I was a kid I reacted to my parents admonishments in exactly the same way that my daughter reacts to me...with a hefty roll of the eyes.

To her credit, she is much more polite than I was.  I rarely see her reactions.  I was a jerk. She sits and listens to me pontificate and go on, and on...and ON...about whatever, from skirt length to TV watching to homework to household chores. I stormed out in a huff.

She questions and argues her point intelligently and can be disrespectful but most of the time she just endures my predictable attempts to guide her down a safer, more productive path than I took.

It is true, as my wise wife says, that the only thing you can't give to your kids is the benefit of your experience.

Your kids have to walk down the path by themselves and experience each and every bump and twist and turn that comes their way.

It doesn't matter that you did EXACTLY the very same thing that they are doing.  It doesn't matter that you KNOW what will happen if they make that choice.

They hear you yakking but they are not listening.  They have to fall down in order to know that, A) there's a bump there and, B) what to do the next time they encounter one.

Actually they do listen once in a while. 

I have spent a lot of time telling my daughter about the dangers of smoking and thankfully, after one or two experimental tokes, she has chosen not to smoke.

I told her that drinking can make you, not only stupid, but can make you sick, or worse, dead.

I am grateful that, after a couple of "secret" sips in the woods, she has decided not to indulge.

So maybe all of the repetitive blather that I have knee-jerked into her little ears has, somehow, gotten in, past the ubiquitous iPod, telephone, TV and internet.

Maybe all of the things that my parents bored me to death with lodged in my subconscious and are now being passed down to my beautiful little girl.

A true oral history.  Real, tangible heirlooms given, like gifts, to my child by her parents, and grandparents and great-grandparents.

Like silver, or gold, or jewelry or art.

Only much better.

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