I’ve reached that point in my writing career where after I have a heart to heart with one of my sons they request that I please not write about it. Of course I tell them I won’t. I mean, what kind of monster do you think I am? I’ll tell you, I’m a monster with a bad memory. How can I possibly remember what things I’ve promised not to write about and what things I haven’t? So I just live in the moment.
This week’s moment was signing my oldest son up for driver’s education. Yeah, that time has arrived. To be honest, I’m not all that worried about the driving thing for either of my sons. Somehow (I blame their mother) both of them are quite cautious, and the younger one is a full-blown rule follower. Their biggest problem when driving is that they’re gonna be the driver who stops at an intersection when they don’t have a stop sign. You know the type. You’ll be waiving them forward, but it won’t matter. Finally, you have to give up and turn in front of them.
When I took driver’s ed, my well earned nickname was “Big Red” due to the number of stop signs I regarded as yield signs. In my defense, I grew up driving on a ranch. At the age of twelve I was driving the tractor. Then the ranch truck. Anywho, it took me a while to get the hang of using side mirrors and all other such non-essentials.
No, it wasn’t driver’s education that my brain started looping on this week. It was all the other little practical parenting tidbits that I still have left to deploy amidst the shrinking window of time my sons will be under my roof (I’ve been quite clear with them since they were six that they were moving out at the age of eighteen). In today’s day and age, what should I focus on? Getting them debit cards? Investing in the stock market? Showing them how to set up a crypto wallet?
Neither one of them have a smartphone, and for the most part they don’t even want one. Discord works better on the computer anyway, and most of their friends are also gamers. We’ve had different aspects of the sex talk. They know how to cook eggs and do laundry. They can mow lawns, and if their life depended on it, they could operate basic power tools. They’ve now traveled abroad.
What am I missing? I stress to them all the time that they will do well in life if they can learn two things: delayed gratification and planned obsolescence (and other such scandalous market ploys). Oh, and empathy. The world needs a lot more empathy these days.
I’ve intentionally set the bar low for them by repeating things like, “Hey, you already know how to use your words better than 90% of adults out there.” I don’t know, maybe this wasn’t the best strategy, but they tend to worry about stuff. And I want them to know that they’ve accomplished a ton already. I suppose it’s more likely I’m so egotistical about my parenting skills that I regularly need to remind them how fortunate they are to have someone of my expertise around the house. (But this isn’t about me…or is it?)
I guess I’ve just reached that point where the sand in the hour glass appears to drain faster. The window is closing. My manipulative powers of parental influence are waining. And I find myself wondering about the few remaining years during which we will all be together all of the time. Maybe I’m feeling the need to up my game. It is, after all, crunch time.
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