Release the Hounds
June 23, 2013
It’s summer and I’m lengthening the leash. This is the year that my boys will wake up, leave the house and won’t return until sundown. They’ll play in questionable ditch beds, they’ll dart in front of cars, they’ll run red lights on their bikes. They’ll forget sunscreen. They’ll play with matches. They’ll confront rattlesnakes. They’ll fashion zip lines made out of belts, firewood and duct tape. They’ll fall face-first into cactuses and I’ll wear their injuries like a badge of honor. (By the way, all this has already happened since school’s been out and we’ve got eight more weeks to go.)
This is the summer where I’m hoping my kids fail. Fail big. Although it goes against every fiber of maternal DNA, I’m convinced that the best lessons are the most painful and therefore I need to step back and let them make their own bonehead decisions and suffer – and learn from – the consequences. We all know that the consequences of bad decisions increase in proportion to our age. I’d rather have them suffer a few broken bones now than take a call in the middle of the night from the Sheriff’s office later.
I am committed to not be like “those parents.” Those hoverers. Those helicopters, ready to swoop in at the first sign of the least discomfort of their little ones. Truth be known, that’s me, I’m just trying to hide it. I also have a support group of like-minded parents to suffer alongside me: We group-ventilate each time our kids head to the sinkhole behind the house, or the likely-to-cave-in-any-moment fort. We remind each other to update our insurance.
It’s better than the alternative. Parents who refuse to cut the cord now produce a generation of paralyzed adults later. You know the type: Young Adults who’ve never experienced failure. Their parents manage their finances, write their entrance exams and negotiate their starting salaries. Ick.
I loved it when my kids were babies. I won’t love it so much when they are 30-year old babies. When I was a kid, we lived near the confluence of the Roaring Fork River and the Colorado River. Every day of the summer, my siblings and I played on the banks of the raging river, constructing ropes lines across the river and building water vessels from river junk and willow branches. When we got bored, we’d leave pennies on the railroad track, lie down parallel to the track to watch the furious locomotives run over the coins and smash them, watching the sparks fly.
And then there was the creepy guy who parked his creepy-guy van on the banks all summer. He never got out of his car, just sat in the front seat, staring ahead. Convinced he was dead, we took turns sneaking up to his car to get the closest possible look. No one got hurt. No one got abducted but we never forgot the power of a spring runoff, nor the force of a locomotive blazing past you, nor the need of forming a hasty exit plan if a creepy guy rises from the dead and tries to snatch you, just in case.
In a space of 10 weeks when my kids were toddlers, between them they racked up multiple trips to the ER for head staples, lots of super glue and 14 stitches. This was the chapter in our lives where my little general thought “Insta-Care” meant “Day Care.” Significantly, all those accidents occurred while I was home with them and most of the accidents occurred while I was practicing the piano. Given my quality parenting, I figure they are safer without me.
The boys’ dad likes to say they have a lethal combination of his lack of coordination and my sense of adventure. He’s right and their little faces bear the scars to prove it. When my oldest was 5 years old, we were bouldering in the Black Hills. With each leap, my little giant grew braver and bolder, increasing the space and caverns between each leap. His last jump, he grossly overjudged, missed and smashed all the bones on his right cheek. Now, with a permanent indent in his face as a reminder, he looks before he leaps. Hopefully, there’ll be more lessons like that to follow. Lord willin’ we’ll all survive.
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