I’ve come to embrace the idea of living with paradoxes. Two completely competing thoughts or ideas or states of being, that both can be true even if they counter each other.
The most recent example was with my son’s performance in high school. His grades leave something to be desired. I want to really push him to get those grades up, at the same time I acknowledge that the life he’s going to live will be his own and who am I to tell anyone to get better grades?
Overall he’s a good kid. He does his chores at home, saves his money for things he wants, and seems to take in the lessons I have to teach. He just doesn’t seem particularly motivated at school to make the effort to be an A student.
If I’m willing to embrace that the life I’ve lived, mistakes and all, that has given me a life that I’d never trade it away, then how could I impose anything different on my children?
If my son’s grades were high, it would paint a simple path ahead of going to the best universities, studying what he wanted, and then going on with his life.
With the weaker grades, all of that is clouded.
Now, I’m writing this to you from a perspective of someone who has gone a totally different path. I’ve lived that clouded life.
The other thing, is that this old model of living (birth, education, career, marriage, children, retirement, death) is a “20th century” model. It doesn’t exist any longer. You will not be in the same career your entire life, and the quicker you adapt to that possibility and reinvent yourself, the better off you’ll be.
So the paradox is that we still want a teenager to have a road map of what their life will be, even though this is impossible.
So I’m going to remind myself of that, allow my son to muddle around, maybe not get into the best schools (right now), and figure things out as he goes along. When something comes along that sparks him enough to put that effort in, he’ll be open and ready for it.
And if he spends some times in the woods trying to figure that out for himself, he’ll be fine.
And he’s allowed to change his mind. Anytime for any reason. This can be tricky to live with, but that’s the paradox.
That is all so true. When I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s in Niagara, Toronto was a distant and exciting possibility – and it was an hour away. Today kids have a huge and international labour market – universities now regularly offer semesters in Europe or Asia. That was never imagined as I grew up. It is exciting to think of all the possibilities that lie ahead for this generation – locations, jobs, technologies – many of them we cannot even envision today. I want to live long enough to see some of those things unfold….
Welcome to the blog, Sandra. Thanks for sharing. Yes, the world my kids will come of age in can’t be imagined.