parenting

Father's Day was a little weird for me, not having had a usable one past the first few years of my life.
I watch the Fuss going about his business- staring at birds out the window, field testing the edibility of a coffee cup, waving a valuable New York World's Fair program over his head while I chase him down the hall, smiling at me from his high chair- and I wonder he could just walk through the net of those connections, leaving behind little besides the scent of cigar ash and an unbroken record of picking me up late from preschool.

Uncle Timmy once considered the stark differences between he & the wife's Dickensian upbringing with the Fiend's life of leisure, asking straight faced "is it because we weren't as beautiful as she is?" Nonsense of course. Our children are as we were.

But that is the impulse- to always blame ourselves for the failures of our parents. Because God must be perfect.
The alternative is unthinkable- or at least, unthinkable without a whole lot of therapy.

And that is the terror of parenthood.
I suppose it could cause someone to flee, or break under the pressure. Or go mad with the power.

It is a narrow trail to follow, with hazards on every side and little in the way of guidance.
But then at the end your child gets to be who they are, not what you made them.

I much prefer thinking of myself as the caretaker for this amazing being, rather than its master.