Parenting

Yesterday I went to see Avatar with my daughter. It was a momentous movie. Unbelievable digital effects. I kept wondering where James Cameron got the imagination to create this over-the-edge fairy tail. And it was good to see the Indians win against overwhelming forces for once. Having grown up in the era of westerns where the Indians were always the bad guys, it's a refreshing departure. Christine & I went to a bar afterward and enjoyed an Irish coffee and talked about our lives. Even though we live only a block from each other we don't often sit and talk like that.

Part of getting older is knowing that your children are making it - are able to take care of themselves - and are competent to deal with what life throws at them. Both of ours are and it's an acknowledge to Anne and I that we did at least one thing right. Or well ere, we have two children, so we did two things right.

It's interesting to watch when our children want to bounce things off of us - without asking for advice, of course. They're checking out their strategies and tactics to see if they get a negative or positive reaction. Typically we don't offer advice. We just listen. But they know if we think they are way off track we won't hesitate to say so. It's also interesting that those instances when we think they are way off track are very rare.

We sometimes hear complaints from other parents our age about their adult children's behaviors, or marriages, or "parenting mistakes", etc. It's not that their views are right or wrong. It's that they are expressing their own dismay, and somehow some kind of personal short coming, a kind of lament regarding what they experience as an indictment of their parenting. Still I have compassion for them when I hear these complaints as I am clear how tenuous this whole business called success really is.

When we're younger, we don't necessarily see all the risks. We just charge into life, being immortal and unstoppable and not confronting all the potential pitfalls. Maybe that lack of fear is the source of success, I don't know. Later in life when I look back, I sometimes marvel at some of the things I did, the risks I took, and wonder how I managed, or we managed to get through those situations. We could call it luck, but I think it's more like the power of intention.

I'm now watching our children do similar things, jumping where I would now be cautious, taking on the "next thing" seemingly without worry or hesitation, and dealing with our down economy like it's just another thing to handle in life. Geez.

Is worrying about a down economy a senior thing? Or does everyone do that?