Seeing eye-to-eye

You know, once in a while, since I’m up earlier anyway, I steal my daughter’s perfectly chosen car. It’s fun to drive around occasionally when I can afford the gas. Don’t get me wrong, I brace myself for shock when I brave the use of it. I expect it to be filthy. I expect the inspection, registration, or maintenance to be out of date. I expect weird little teenagery odds and ends tossed around. What I found, I could never have expected…

Country music on the radio?!?!?

What the…?

I scramble to change the station – none of the buttons work!

I try to open the face-plate – it doesn’t turn off the radio!

Finally, I shut the car off entirely – and all… goes… quiet.

I begin to panic. “Has someone been stealing her car?” “Is it this stupid new boyfriend?” “Have aliens stolen my baby and replaced her with… an alien?!?!”

Suddenly, flashbacks:

She chose to work over the past holiday, rather than take a trip to the Caribbean. Woah! I know I didn’t teach her that.

She’s in church more Sundays than she isn’t. Yeah… that’s not me.

Days crammed with running from place to place to place when I taught her not to pack her schedule so tight she doesn’t enjoy it.

Black and pink and skully earrings replaced by rainbow colored socks and “fun” mittens.

Making breakfast sandwiches and movie nights with Dad replaced by dinner with friends and out too late to get up before breakfast stops being served.

Who is this girl? I begin to think the alien theory holds some weight.

Then, I begin to realize how far she’s come from the days we finished each other’s sentences and wonder how far she will go. It really sinks in how very different we are.

The landslide

We see our children through the filter of the life we’ve created for them.

We believe that our children are going to be little versions of us. They will make the same choices we will. They will hold the same moral values we do. They will like the things we like.

Well, they should – or we’ve failed as parents to teach them the “right” things.

It starts when Johnny doesn’t want to play ball with us anymore; when Mary doesn’t want to go shopping. Then, they do things we wouldn’t ever think of doing: Johnny goes vegan; Mary brings home a girlfriend. In our minds, they deteriorate into the underbelly of society. We delude ourselves into believing that nothing we taught them stuck and they will suddenly turn up drop-outs, murderers, or teen parents.

Where the eyes meet

And then it happens: In one of the fleeting moments you spend with your teen, you see them interacting with the general public. They open a door for the elderly. They give the extra change back to the cashier. They apologize when they’re wrong. They say “no” to their friend’s sleepover before a big test.

This is where the filter we see our children through begins to clear.  They can’t live up to the perfect scenario we set out for them. They can’t be exactly the person we are nor the person we want them to be. Life – and parenting – simply doesn’t work that way.

Our kids are actually starting to make decisions, on their own, that are positive for their lives. They hold the moral values we gave them. Maybe… just maybe… they might even clean up after themselves!

So, wearing sweatpants to the store is annoying, the girlfriend is a whiny princess, and they got a speeding ticket? Seeing our kids make the bigger decisions – volunteering without asking, visiting their grandparents, telling the truth; those are the important things.

Our children are more like us, than they are like random strangers, friends, and even extended family.

I didn’t even have to go buy these shirts. She still had hers.

It would appear that, just because our children are creating an identity for themselves, doesn’t mean they have forgotten the person we taught them to be – good taste and all!

Whew! All that work isn’t in vain.

Now, you can follow my shenanigans on Twitter.

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