Living

We only have so much control over the people in our lives and that is the way it should be, but it is also why childhood is so important.

Those early years are the ones we use to give our loved ones the foundations they will need to survive in this world. It is where we teach them our values, our morals, our ethics, our methods for learning and discerning right from wrong, our way of dealing with dissension. Our way of making choices that come up in periods of coerce-ment, or bullying, or even just public preferences that may clash with what we already believe.

These things are just as important as manners, dress codes, and driving a car. Maybe more so in the long run.

Because we really don't have any control over our loved ones once they reach the age where they feel like adults. Then they can choose to go along with us. Or not.

Our desire to protect them, well meaning as it may be, really should not be their prime source of guidance. If we were good parents, they will have internalized that and now they have to make their own decisions.

Adults carry their own code for living: with them, within them and that is as it should be, always there, always accessible, always in process.