A wrinkle in time.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 at 8:42AM We have a scheduling change.
(Ha-ha. We.)
My presentation at the Women's Finance Exchange has been moved from Thursday, March 18 to Wednesday, March 31.
The move was necessary in order to accommodate Spring Break.
Oh, I remember Spring Break. Yep. The zany days of my youth. Vail, Crested Butte, South Padre Island, even London one year. Man!
It's hard to imagine my parents turning me loose for the last two destinations on that list. The ski trips were always family vacations. But the last two were solo. No...they were worse than solo. Boys were involved in each journey.
So, did they let me go because they were bad parents and didn't care? Uh-huh. That's likely, based on what you've read here in the last eight or so months (wow!). Nope. They let me go because they were good parents and had done their job, in terms of equipping me to make good choices.
If you had asked me about it at the time, of course, I would have been completely oblivious to that. I would have said they let me go because they were pretty nice, overall, and it was Spring Break, and what else did people do over Spring Break. Plus, I financed the London trip on my own, and I was in college. But they could have stopped me, if they had really wanted to.
It's only now that I have my own kids that I can truly appreciate all the work that went into that letting go. The trust it involved. I'm trying to do as good a job as they did.
And I know it's a life-long process. A couple of years ago, my mom was dispensing some advice. Probably really good advice, too. And I replied with, "Mom. You raised* me to be independent and make good decisions. Now let me do it."
She liked that, actually. It was a cool moment. And I'm documenting it so it can be held against me later, by my children. Because we do tend to forget.
* Yes, I know. Cattle are raised; children are reared. But I said "raised," because "reared" is just so formal.
Reader Comments (1)
I trust my children, but I still don't like to think about the day they'd tell me how they wish to be independent. Letting go of them would be difficult for me, I'm sure. But is there any other way to show them that I completely trust them?
Jane Dawson
Collagen Stimulation