So here's the problem I face as a parent:
1. I have some terribly fond memories of my childhood, it was pretty idyllic. Although I was a child of divorce my parents still got along and my new step siblings treated me well. So it was mostly a matter of getting cool new family members, and a different house I could play at. And because of that, I want to somehow make sure my children get the best of that, so I often fall into the nostalgia trap of trying to recreate how my parents raised me.
2. The problem, as I discussed last week, is that no one's childhood experience is going to be the same as someone else's. No matter how hard I try, it won't be the same, the world around us is different, Kim is very different from my Mom, etc. So even if I try to recreate for the kids what I grew up with, at best it would only be a re-mix of what I had, with lots of different samples tossed in. So the reality is I need to let go at times and let the kids craft their own childhood.
3. On top of this is the Helicopter Parent v. Free Range quandary. I would like my kids to be as free range as I was, but the world is different: I don't live in a quiet Broadmoor neighborhood like my parents did. There are more dangers outside as far as traffic concerns etc. And there are far more internal attractions than I ever had: PlayStation, computer, Cartoon Network. So there just aren't as many reasons to venture into the 'dangerous' outside world as I had.
4. And there is real serious pressure to schedule fun for the children, in part because this scheduled fun is all part of the vast extracurricular industrial complex, which has a huge hold on our psyches with the message: your child is special, but not special enough, in order to compete and stand out, they must learn a new language, play 5 sports, draw like Michelangelo and work in soup kitchens helping the homeless. And I am not too proud to admit that yesterday I realized I had fallen prey to that message. There I was last week, planning how James could juggle a sport, martial arts and piano lessons into the same week as school. Fortunately Kim reigned me in. And I decided that for now, James will be limited to 1 extra curricular activity. Either a sport or piano lessons, and then only once school starts. Once baseball ends James gets a break until September from any extra activities. Daniel gets to follow James, that is he does what James does for now, until he gets old enough to make his own mind up (although he will probably want to do whatever his big brother does for quite a while).
UPDATE: Forgot to note this yesterday, James does not have Strep, he just has a cold. Which is good news, athough Emily may have the same cold as well, which is no fun, and hard to tell when they are teething as the symptoms are quite similar.
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