Let the Child Be

 

My mother had a definite idea of what I should be, which would explain the accounting class I took (and very quietly dropped) my junior year at DePaul.  My father, bless him, was free of any such conceits.  He just didn’t want his son to be a bum.  In that, I think I’ve succeeded.

Clare says she gets antsy if she’s not active, and I believe her.  Weightlifting, yoga and the gym are all part of her routine the way reading the paper is for me.  My daughter doesn’t much care whether or not her life goes examined.  But it has to be active.

I wonder what she would have done fifty years ago, a visiting nurse, maybe, or union organizer always on picket-line duty.  For that matter, I wonder about the girls in my accounting class.  Did they ever get antsy the way Clare does?   I’m not sure first-wave feminism saw women as power-hitting athletes.

Michele and I practiced what my mother did, if with a bit more subtlety.  Maybe you’d like to teach or go into the sciences.  What about law?  Each time the suggestion generated some initial interest, only to be followed by disappointment.  The mustard seed of a career kept falling on sandy soil.  At least with law, that was a good thing.  Seeing what my daughter thinks of umpires, I doubt she would have done well with judges.

At one point or another in my education, I picked up minors in Spanish, Russian history and 20^th century urbanism; go ahead, ask me what style that building is.  Clare has minors in sports psychology and, thanks to a new offering this fall, coaching.  The senior captain is already acting like a coach, and next year she may formally become an assistant, graduate school in sports’ management permitting.

All a parent can do at this point is step aside and let the child be.