“So few that live have life.” – Emily Dickinson

From “Me Too 365,” by Arnold Kunst

13 August

You may not be aware of it at the outset, but being a parent is a marathon, not a sprint. Instead, as a brand new parent you will be run off your feet, confronted with the sobering realization that the Mommys-And-Daddies School is right next door to the Walking Academy on the campus of the College of Hard Knocks. The thing starts softly since in those first few days the perimeters are, happily, limited. After all, when the child cries there are only a few options –diaper? wind? cuddle? bottle? - that need attention to re-attain tranquility [if ‘tranquility’ is the word I’m looking for].

As the child gets older the options for attaining that same tranquility increase, but so does your ability to tailor just the right ministration[s] to just the right situation. So when, for example, your daughter’s got a boy friend problem at 13 and a trip to the ice cream store won’t cut it, you will have figured out what will. And when she virtually disappears from your radar screen during those long teenage years – and that’s going to happen as surely as you disappeared from YOUR parents’ radar screen at that age – you’ve got to tough it out and love her as best you can. And when those terrible years of emotional eclipse are finally over, the reward [both for your child and for you] is the rock-of-Gibraltar conviction you’ve conveyed to them that they are LOVED, and their resultant sense of self is utterly assured.

Then – from a sufficient distance – the two of you can look back on all those years and say, contentedly, “wasn’t that fun!”