Raising an Adult
I don't know where or when I head the quote, but somewhere along the line I picked up a bit wisdom that goes something like this, “You're not raising a child, you're raising an adult. If you raise a child, that's exactly what you'll get.” I try to keep this in mind with my son. We're trying to show him and teach him how to be the kind of adult we hope he grows into, not the child he is today.
That gets hard some days. I'm not breaking any new ground by revealing that parenting is hard. Some parents have “easier” kids, some have more difficult kids, but one thing I can guarantee is that every parent feels like they don't measure up to the task sometimes. And sometimes that task feels patently unfair, like when I think about how to show my son how to live our values.
I worry about him sometimes. In our house, we're very vocally progressive. My wife and I openly talk about our concerns, our frustrations, and the latest astonishingly awful thing our elected officials did that day. He overhears it as he plays a video game or watches a video. He even processes some of it because he'll ask clarifying questions of us and we'll break issues down for him when he asks or we think it's important enough for him to know and understand them. What I worry about is that he's a kid, and he has no filter.
We drive around, see house with a Trump flag, and he's very vocal about how they've had enough time for their “victory lap.” If someone says something in our proximity that he knows runs counter to what we've taught him, he'll say something like “Ugh, really?! Are you kidding me?”
I love this about him, but I also inwardly flinch every time this happens in earshot of someone else. Not because I don't want him to stand up for his values, but because I don't want him to become a target of criticism or abuse for his beliefs because, frankly, he doesn't have the skills to defend his position yet. But, again, I'm helping to raise an adult. And if this is a preview of the kind of adult he's going to be – a fierce ally, an advocate for the disadvantaged, a vocal defender of his positions and beliefs – then I guess at the end of the day, I'm good with it.