BOOK REVIEW BY CLAUDINE CIEUTAT, MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL As our children grow up, as early as middle school, our parental role changes. Not only is adolescence a huge transformation for our children, but it is also one for parents. In THE GIFT OF AN ORDINARY DAY: A MOTHER’S MEMOIR, Katrina Kenison talks about this transformation. Although Kenison shared many great points, there are three that I would like to share: IT IS TOUGH TO LET GO, SOCIETY HAS TOO MUCH POWER OVER OUR PARENTAL DECISION MAKING, AND IT IS TIME TO FOCUS ON WHAT IS. APPROPRIATELY LETTING GO of our adolescents is on the top of difficult things for parents to do. I have been a parent for almost half of my life. One of my daughters is in college and the other is in high school. When they were finishing Middle School, they began to grow up, suitably pushing away, and my self-definition was in question, especially when my youngest was going through this transformation. What was I to do now? After years of finding a sense of purpose and fulfillment in my role as a productive, almost always available mother, life, as my children grow older, calls me to a new place, a very unfamiliar place. Kenison points out that our children “don’t belong to us…we are lucky, really, to get to have our children with us for as long as we do. But we certainly don’t get to choose their destinies, and we can’t be holding on when all their life force is urging them to go.” She states that our “new job now is not to hold (our) children close, but to prepare them, as best as (we) can, to move away from us and into lives of their own.” Our primary goal as parents is to prepare our children so that they can successfully and happily live life. In doing that, we must try to stand back as much as we can and trust them to find their way and to experience life so that they are ready for the good and the bad. It is amazing HOW MUCH POWER SOCIETY HAS OVER OUR PARENTAL DECISION MAKING. Our children are already stressed, even in early Middle School, about whether or not they will get into college and what they will become when they get older. In doing that, they forget to enjoy life as a teenager. Kenison states that it is “easy to fall into believing that our children, if they are to succeed in life, need to be terrific at everything, and that it is up to us to make sure that they are – to keep them on track through tougher course loads, more activities, more competitive sports, more summer programs. But in all our well-intentioned efforts to do the right thing for our teenage children, we may be failing to provide them with something that is truly essential – the time and space they need to wake up to themselves, to grow acquainted with their own innate gifts, to dream their dreams and discover their true natures.” I try to put myself in my girls’ shoes. How stressed out I would be if my parents had the expectation that I had to be perfect at everything! God has given each of us special gifts. We need
to give our very precious children the opportunity to find out what their gifts are so that they can live their life the way it is intended to be. Joseph Campbell said, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” Don’t we owe it to our children to do just that? Kenison believes that while we (parents and children) are going through transformation, we need to FOCUS ON WHAT IS. Slowing down and being with our family and friends while enjoying all of life’s simple pleasures can be so rewarding. We can get so caught up in worries about what might be, that we may miss out on the beauty of what is. Taking time out of our day to appreciate the simple pleasures in life will help our children to slow down and find happiness. Kenison says that simple pleasures can be the most memorable and profound moments in life. The three points that I have embraced from this book are that there comes a time in life when we must realize that we need to let our children experience life...make mistakes, find happiness and, most of all, figure out who they are and their purpose in life. I will also muffle society as it tells me what my daughters should be; I will be more attuned to who they are and how I can support them to be what God intended them to be. Finally, I will focus (and I will help my daughters to focus) on the more important things in life...the simple pleasures. FAVORITE QUOTES On adolescence: As writer Phyllis Theroux observes, “We set off like captains of clipper ships outfitted with the latest gear and tackle to race across the ocean. Then, somewhere midcrossing, we realize that the expedition is essentially beyond our control. That time coincides with children becoming adolescents. Adolescence is a mutinous, confusing time when everybody is trying to get off the boat.” On parenting: “Our children drop into our neat, tightly governed lives like small, rowdy Buddhist masters, each of them sent to teach us the hard lessons we most need to learn.” Joh Kabat-Zinn FALL 2015 |
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