DURING my school years, I was something of an athlete. I found out early as a short, different refugee kid, running from bigger meaner kids, that I could run faster than them, so fast in fact that I gained some measure of respect and by grade three was getting picked first for playground team sports instead of dead last. As I got a little bigger and older, I made a point of picking the underdog for my own team. A trait I have stuck to my entire life. Even long after I'd grown up, I still find myself being that guy that tries harder to get the the "little guy/girl" the support they need. There was Bill, and even Rob. Some things are good to have carried over from childhood don't you think.
I have two natural daughters as well as a third that I i'm living with now, going through her own trials and tribulations. To say they had things easier than I did would be irrelevant to be sure, after all, each life is different and every person on the planet has to make their own way after all. However once a Dad... always a Dad.
My girls are grown young women. Both in their thirties. I can easily say that because by the time I'd reached my thirties, I accomplished much on my own list of dreams and wishes and to this day, continue to do so.
Only recently, after a move far away from my 'children' can I sit back and evaluate my job/career as their father and look with a passionate eye at their own lives. If you are a parent and have a pulse, you know what I mean by that.
It's true that some families are close, others indifferent while the vast majority will fall somewhere in between. I wouldn't call my own small Cdn family "close" in fact sometimes I wonder if we are even related, we are so different in many ways. Kids, for the most part, are a product of their environment. They tend to emulate or ignore their parents and siblings. Sometimes people wonder if they are even family...
By saying my headline today, I am doing so, tongue in cheek of course (had you going didn't I :)
Experience tells us kids do NOT stay kids, they grow up and much of the time, away. Take my own for example. My younger daughter lived with her mother until about age 19 before the gutsy move across the country, coming to live with her sister and I. Her sister has just moved back to Calgary after spending 4 years away, at home and abroad on her studies.
Probably the hardest dam thing a parent can do it to encourage their 'kids' to grow up and go out there... into the real world. You and I both know from our own experiences, it can be a cruel and vicious world indeed.
I've just spent the last ten days at my Phoenix home, five of those days with my thirty something elder daughter. Yeah we did some touristy things, drove across town to the Frank Lloyd Wright compound and had dinner at the Golden Corral last night, but for the most part, we met on the playing field (my patio) as equals, not as superior or inferior.
I haven't seen much of Holly these last four years. She has after all, lived elsewhere (Halifax, Germany, Beijing etc) and it wasn't a walk to the corner to catch a bus. In our discussions, varied and deep as they were, it struck me once again that this girl, my girls, are no underdogs. Intelligent, experienced vivacious and mostly confident especially as compared to many of my very own contemporaries.
Holly tells me her flight has been diverted to Abilene due to thunderstorms in Dallas. I have to smile at that.
Sure,
she is my daughter... but she sure ain't no kid!
I have two natural daughters as well as a third that I i'm living with now, going through her own trials and tribulations. To say they had things easier than I did would be irrelevant to be sure, after all, each life is different and every person on the planet has to make their own way after all. However once a Dad... always a Dad.
My girls are grown young women. Both in their thirties. I can easily say that because by the time I'd reached my thirties, I accomplished much on my own list of dreams and wishes and to this day, continue to do so.
Only recently, after a move far away from my 'children' can I sit back and evaluate my job/career as their father and look with a passionate eye at their own lives. If you are a parent and have a pulse, you know what I mean by that.
It's true that some families are close, others indifferent while the vast majority will fall somewhere in between. I wouldn't call my own small Cdn family "close" in fact sometimes I wonder if we are even related, we are so different in many ways. Kids, for the most part, are a product of their environment. They tend to emulate or ignore their parents and siblings. Sometimes people wonder if they are even family...
By saying my headline today, I am doing so, tongue in cheek of course (had you going didn't I :)
Experience tells us kids do NOT stay kids, they grow up and much of the time, away. Take my own for example. My younger daughter lived with her mother until about age 19 before the gutsy move across the country, coming to live with her sister and I. Her sister has just moved back to Calgary after spending 4 years away, at home and abroad on her studies.
Probably the hardest dam thing a parent can do it to encourage their 'kids' to grow up and go out there... into the real world. You and I both know from our own experiences, it can be a cruel and vicious world indeed.
I've just spent the last ten days at my Phoenix home, five of those days with my thirty something elder daughter. Yeah we did some touristy things, drove across town to the Frank Lloyd Wright compound and had dinner at the Golden Corral last night, but for the most part, we met on the playing field (my patio) as equals, not as superior or inferior.
I haven't seen much of Holly these last four years. She has after all, lived elsewhere (Halifax, Germany, Beijing etc) and it wasn't a walk to the corner to catch a bus. In our discussions, varied and deep as they were, it struck me once again that this girl, my girls, are no underdogs. Intelligent, experienced vivacious and mostly confident especially as compared to many of my very own contemporaries.
Holly tells me her flight has been diverted to Abilene due to thunderstorms in Dallas. I have to smile at that.
Sure,
she is my daughter... but she sure ain't no kid!
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