"I think in my almost 40 years as a policeman, my life has counted for something,"That statement has been under my skin all weekend. I envy Chief Bratton’s confidence that he has done his job and done it well. I know in my head that raising my children “counts” for something, but parenting is a vocation that doesn’t offer predictable results, and in my heart I wonder if I'm doing my job well enough. I can try to do all the “right” things, and my kids may still become criminals, or, worse, lose their faith. Or they may just not turn out the way I imagine. And then there's that tricky question of just what all the "right" things are...
I have to remind myself to surrender my expectations, and hope and pray that the kids at least get the basics: love for neighbor and love for God.
And I have to remember not to measure my “success” as a parent to an image of perfect parent from a magazine or a book. For instance, I finished reading Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods this weekend, and while it motivated me to make outdoor play a priority, it also added to my anxiety about being a good parent. How I can find a time and a place for my kids to build a tree house so that they don’t suffer from nature-deficit disorder? When can we buy a farm so that they learn to appreciate creation and their role as stewards of it? Have I helped them cultivate a sense of wonder or is it too late?
On the tail of reading about the Trapps, who wandered the mountains and countryside near their home, celebrated feasts and sang prayers together, reading this book has thrown me into a state of mild despair that I am failing to give my children a better life. How can I make their lives richer? Is all the moving around that we do robbing them from a sense of connection with a place called home? Will they understand what it means to be a part of a community? Is my discontent a sign that we need to make radical changes?
Or is it rather a sign that I lack gratitude for what we do have? After the kids went to bed Friday night, Dan and I sat outside on the lanai (southern for patio) with our cups of red wine (don’t like to wash stems) talking about our blessedness. We have had so little real suffering in our lives that we wonder if calamity will strike sooner or later. Our culture is so fixated on avoiding pain that an absence of suffering could actually be detrimental to the soul. (Another anxiety: how can our kids acquire virtues if they don’t feel a little pain?)
One minute I think that all my worries will go away if we just make a few major changes – but the next I realize that most of my anxieties could be eased if I made a few minor changes of attitude. Maybe it wasn’t Bill Bratton’s achievements that allowed him to know his life “counted,” but his perspective.
The affliction is easy to diagnose; the cure, harder to effect.
