If you know me, you know I am an avid reader. I have been my entire life. When I want to escape, I read. When I want to wind down, I read. It’s a cathartic thing for me, and I love to model that for my son the way my Mother did for me if that’s something he will be interested in, and for the most part he is. One of my favorite memories with my Mom was going to Barnes and Noble every weekend to pick out new books or magazines together. Over the weekend I read the book, “Everything I Never Told You” By Celeste Ng. It was so devastatingly beautiful. It explores so many facets of generational grief throughout the text, and it got me thinking about so many things. My own life, the way I parent, what morphs us into the people we become.
For me, I was raised free range. Of course, like any other kid I was told no with certain things. But, for the most part if I was interested in doing something my parents supported it for both myself and my sister. We were never pushed into one life direction in order to succeed, we forged our own paths. As a woman, my Mother always pushed us to be independent of a man. We weren’t striving to just, “be a wife” or a mom. She wanted more for us, so did our Dad. Growing up, every weekend while Mom was at work and Dad was off during the day and working a second job at night, he would teach me all about carpentry. He spent his entire life working his ass off (Mom too) and was a very successful foreman in construction. He made sure I knew how to use tools and be self-sufficient when it came to things like that. I still cut my own grass and take care of my yard myself.
My parents didn’t go to college, they got married very young and moved away to Texas at the ages of nineteen and twenty. College was not pushed in our home, but if we wanted to go it was supported. While reading this book, the pressure put on the children’s characters to excel academically was not something I experienced from my parents. I never really thought about the toll it could take on an adolescent and teen mind if your parent tried to make you something they could never be because of their own upbringing, failures, and parental standards that they did not achieve. School was hard for me; I didn’t ever really feel like I belonged to anything, and I was bullied. I was great at English and writing, and I have loved music my whole life. Growing up I wanted to always be a writer or singer. I eventually finally ended up getting my Bachelor of Arts with a focus in creative writing and English literature when my son was two years old. I took a very long time to finish college, starting and stop when life got in the way, but it was important to me for my son to see me obtain that success. Why? I still don’t really know. Because my parents didn’t push college on me growing up, I thought that it was just something you were, “supposed to do.” I want my son to know he can do absolutely anything he wants to in life, and I tell him that college is always an option if he wants to go that route. He does, at the age of seven he already knows what college he wants to go to. The opposite of me!
I am not a teacher, and I have the upmost respect for their jobs especially knowing all the extras they now must worry about living in the world we are living in. For my son, I knew conventional learning wasn’t going to work for him based off his personality from a very young age. He is a firecracker in the best way, a spirited, full of vigor, confident little man. I knew if I didn’t find a school to fit that, he’d be forced into a box that would stifle his spirit and mind and that I would probably just homeschool him. Luckily, I found an amazing school that he was accepted into last year after many rounds of interviews. It is nature based, project learning style, and focuses on letting children be children. He is finishing up first grade now, and every day he comes home solidifies that school choice for him. I have always had a parenting style where I let him roam his mind to anything he’s ever wanted. He knew his entire alphabet by the time he was 18 months old. He is gifted in so many ways and I cannot ever imagine him being any other way, nor would I ever want to try to guide him down a path that I THINK he should go down.
Do I want him to be successful? Of course. But who’s definition of success? Not mine. His. I’m almost thirty-four years old, and I still don’t even have the slightest idea about what life is. My biggest success to date has been being able to have the privilege of raising him, even though I’ve had to do it myself which has also been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. Nothing makes me prouder than hearing how delightful he makes life for people, whether it’s a friend or a stranger. He has the vibe you just crave to be around because knowing him makes you want to be better. Knowing him, you know there is so much hope for a future generation of kids that just might make it all right again. If there’s one thing you get out of reading my thoughts today, let it be this. Never stifle your children, let their minds explore every facet they could imagine. Little humans can have dreams for their lives, and you can have your own. Let’s support both of those, even if it’s not the same path.
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