Do we ever really see our children as grown ups? I mean really? In a recent correspondence with our son, I indicated that he would always view his nearly two-year-old son as he is today - innocent, vulnerable, fragile – and that he would one day struggle, as most parents do, to view his son as an adult, all grown up and able to make all his own choices with a mature outlook and an understanding of life. We all have to resist many of our impulses and urge to throw our arms around our grown children and hug them and kiss them as we did when they were babes. We are challenged to watch from the sidelines and they struggle with the balance of life not always knowing when to let them teeter or when to let them fall on their own. It is nearly impossible not to push our ‘years of experience’ advice upon them when we see they are about to make a mistake that we learned lessons from in the ‘school of hard knocks’ and could save them a plethora of heartache if they would but listen to our wisdom rather than have to gain their own in the same painful way we did. I am sixty-one years old – you would think that I have had enough of life’s rivers flow under my bridge to figure some things out, but even now, by beloved mother still reminds me how important it is for me to get my flu shot before winter fully arrives. You see, we just cannot help ourselves. We love and care so deeply for these fragile ones that even when they reach seniority on their own we still try to protect and preserve them at every turn. I am not in any way chastising my precious mother, only using this one thing as an example, so easily seen by any observer, of how, as parents, we never outgrow our love for our children. The answer to my opening salvo? – No, we really never do – to us, as loving parents, they will always be ‘our kids’!
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