Children

Kids are the greatest things. They keep us young and energized. We spend years giving them all of our advice and wisdom hoping with every fiber of our being that one tiny bit of data is absorbed into their clean hard drives. We strive to show them right from wrong; good from bad; how to make choices; how to determine if the choices they made are valid; how to take responsibility for any bad choices they make; how to deal with the consequences of bad choices.

We hand feed them until they learn to pick up a spoon and fork and attempt to aim for their mouth. We prepare meals for them to make sure they get the nourishment they need to help them grow properly. We teach them proper table manners. We teach them respect for adults, each other, if there are siblings and respect for themselves. We buy them clothes to make sure they are warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We enroll them in Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts to help give them a moral boost and to learn to get along as a group.

We teach them to ride a bike so they can learn balance, coordination and their first taste of independence and freedom. We allow them to make mistakes and guide them in a recovery process to correct their mistake and learn from it.

We allow them to touch the stove (metaphorically speaking). They learn the stove is hot and they don't touch it again. Touching the stove is part of growing up. It's what builds character. It's the seed of wisdom.

They fall, we pick them up, comfort them for a second, wiping tears from a tear stained dirty face, while we are secretly checking for broken bones, cuts and scrapes. We kiss them on the cheek, tell them it's all right and push them back into whatever they were doing, which usually turns out more like they RUN back to whatever they were doing.

We bury goldfish, dogs and cats with all of the pomp and circumstance that would rate a King or Queen. We teach them that life is precious and that every living thing one day returns to the earth where it continues the circle of life, and we teach them that their souls go to heaven for God to judge how they lead their lives.

Then they become teenagers and somehow the hard drive gets wiped clean, and you have to start all over. They can no longer reason; they can no longer tell the difference between right and wrong; they screw up and the first thing they do is look around to see who's going to bail them out. Let me rephrase that... they look to the parents TO bail them out and get totally belligerent when we say no.

Was all the time and energy, sweat and tears we invested in them trying to guide them through the process of becoming well adjusted normal human beings wasted?

Well... on a rare few... yes, a total waste of time, but on the others... No. At some point in their life, they realize that their destiny is in their own hands. They actually start realizing that we, as parents are not as stupid as they thought.

Parenting is such a thankless job.

I need mass quantities of liquor....