You see her sitting there,
Eyes sparkle,
The sun dancing on her hair
A smile so wide
A face pure and true
She dreams of being a princess
She already is to you
A dancer, a singer,
A daughter, a sister
In 10 years, you’re bound to lose it
When you find who’s kissed her
What the world is like
Through the eyes of a child
A dad forgets
As the world has mild
But rebirth may come
Watching them grow
An understanding that
We really don’t know
All tomorrow is
And what it will become
Is up to the dreamer
Who steps out into the sun
I just wrote this poem for my daughter. She turns from the tender age of six to the even more tender age of seven this Saturday. And as my mind drifts back this week, thinking of all that has changed in the time since her birth, most of all I think I’m struck by how much I’ve changed.
Often in life, we’re caught gathering moss along our journey through time and space. We become complacent, forgetting what we dreamt of and wanted not so long ago and forging down a road very much traveled.
The highway of life resembles a daily commute: a lot of people stuck in traffic, frustrated and flustered by where they are going, not so much how long it takes to get there.
The metaphor is not lost on me.
As I watched my three boys and my wife sing to our little girl last night in honor of said birthday, I realized that I’m still very much a novice at all this. I have much to do and even more to learn, yet I tend to gather moss in the day to day grind and forget the wonder of life.
It is my job to make sure that my children embrace that excitement, that wonder.The best thing I can do for my little girl is spend as much time as I can with her, simply loving her and supporting her and her dreams. The same with my boys.
As I have wrote before, we’ve stopped dreaming as a society, which means we’ve stopped growing, too. We’re also stripping it away from our children, perhaps subconsciously angry with the world for taking it from us. But we allow it. We follow the crowd. We join in. We participate by refusing to, well, participate.
And all this makes me realize, if being different than the crowd is weird, I’d rather be weird, I suppose, than to be just like everyone else. It’s not up to teachers or to the world at large to raise my children. No role models need apply. Self-image, worth and what they want to be comes from both nature and nurture.
Yes, I think about these things.Yes, I enjoy spending all my time with my family. It is completely fine to admit that, even though it doesn’t sound all that manly.
No, I don’t want to go to the clubs and hit the bars. I never did. But they don’t exactly make bumper stickers for dudes that say, “I’d rather be playing Pirates with my kids!”
There just comes a time when you realize the only real debt that matters is the debt of time. You pay it off every day, and only you can determine how it shall be reconciled.
I have these grand notions of what life will be like for us in the coming years, as my wife and I are determined that our family evolves with each others, remains close, confides in one other, protects one another and above all, does good in the world.
And yes, I meant do good, not do well (even though the latter is grammatically correct).
Children learn what they see. They see what we see, as that is what we typically share. If they see fear, they will become afraid. If they see anger, they become petulant. If they see you being narrow-minded, they will lack vision.
Therefore, are we proud of what we present to them? We’re concerned with the violence, apathy and general distrust found in the world when perhaps our biggest concern is the foundation we lay within our families.
Because we seem to be the ones acting like children – fighting, pushing, pouting. Shouting “mine!” and not playing nicely with others. But children only do this part of the time. As parents, teachers, grandparents and adults, we steer them down a better path.
Well, who steers us?
Currently, we are behaving all the time as children do in their worst of times. Maybe we should take our own advice a little more. Maybe we should share a little more, be a little more kind to one another, read some every day, play with our toys, go to bed at a decent hour, turn off the TV a little more, eat well, pray. Dream.
Because our current path is not the road we want to be on. We’ve seen this before; we learned about it as children ourselves, in fact. It’s called history. And it repeats itself because we allow it, because we don’t correct our mistakes. Because we stand by as spectators in life.
So as my daughter begins a new chapter of her life, what will she learn in the pages that follow that further her story in the additional chapters to come? From my wife and I, and from the world?
I certainly realize I cannot control it all, that experience will teach her, knock her down, give her confidence and add references to her book of life. And the hope is that she keeps moving forward, keeps progressing and becomes all the better for it.
I am certain many of us hope the same thing of ourselves, our children – but what of our nation? Hope can only take you so far.
What are we doing now that will enable us to become the best version of ourselves in the future? Because the best version of us will yield the best version of them.
Yet again, this is a learning moment for us, as a nation, as a culture, as the ones guiding the next generation. Do we want them to follow our lead? Really, do we? Then we should probably start acting like it.
We should probably start acting like children.
Frankly, they’re doing it better than we are.
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