When they put that baby in your arms, the countdown begins. You start fantasizing about being able to tell everyone how, unlike other babies, yours slept through the night at three weeks. Then, you start imagining your child flying through those terrible twos without so much as a single mall-induced temper tantrum. Next stop, elementary school. Of course, your child will love learning, make lots of friends and hardly ever give you trouble about doing homework. Once your child hits middle school, you might reluctantly acknowledge puberty's role in (temporarily) halting the progress of your perfect offspring, but, even then, you figure all will be on track once she hits high school. There, you tell yourself, your child will excel in sports as well as academics, learn to drive without mowing down the neighbor's cat and graduate with an acceptance letter from the college of her choice. Right.
Nowhere in these voyages to Utopia are side trips to failing a class, smoking, having a boyfriend you can't stand, experimenting with drugs, getting arrested or God knows what else. And when you're confronted with these harsh realities, you have to look at yourself and ask some mighty tough questions. "Am I capable of unconditional love?" "Can I grit my teeth and hope for the best when my child makes choices of which I disapprove?" "Am I able to accept her for who she is, not who I want her to be?" "Can I forgive her for not learning fast enough from her mistakes?" And if the answer to any of these questions is 'I'm not so sure', you might have to ask yourself one more question, as I have lately, "Just who's disappointing who?"
No comments:
Post a Comment