On a summer day just shy of twelve years ago, we brought our oldest girl, Destiny Marie, home from the hospital. As young, new parents, we spent many hours discussing the future we had for our new daughter, who, of course, was practically perfect in every way. She would not watch TV outside of a few videos, she would not date when she was a teenager (we still believe the idea of courtship is far closer to God's way of selecting a mate...but discussing that here would set this blog far afield), and, most importantly, she would never play with toy guns. Real guns, in their proper context, were ok, but we did not want her getting the idea that guns were a toy. These rules were hard and fast, immutable, and would apply to our children.
Boy, were we fools.
As Father Time pushes my precious oldest child to the precipice of adolescence, so many things have changed. While we still eschew the excessive television that seems to be endemic to our culture, we have relaxed the rules considerably. In large part because our children have never given us cause for concern with their behaviour that the TV might be a problem. They watch a lot of TV, but in pales in comparison with the hours they spend outside playing, exploring, living the kind of life children were meant to live.
On the dating scene, I still have my preferences and they haven't changed, but as Dessie grows closer to adulthood, I realize it's important to give some consideration to what SHE wants. What is most important for me is for her to know that we will always be here, and while I would prefer she share her values, I would rather sacrifice an absolutist position and keep the relationship intact so that if she ever needs a place to return to, she'll know that this IS the place, even if we may not always agree with the decisions we make. My relationship with my children is paramount; there have been many times when I wished I had caring parents to turn to and I won't leave my children with that same unfilled void.
But of these three positions, I believe the gun issue is the one where we were most naive. If I were to go through the house, I would probably find 20 or more toy guns. I still am not crazy about the idea of toy guns, but I will say that even toy guns are not the problem. Children can be raised in a gun culture responsibly; much of the key lies in making sure they know when and where gun use isn't appropriate. And just as children CAN tell fact from fiction (another stresser was Santa Claus; at first we were an SC free zone; now, while we don't teach Santa as real, we do have more Santa stories around the house; the kids have no difficulty whatsoever with Santa-as-fairy-tale-character), they can discern the difference between real and toy guns. A watergun's fun in one way; an AK-47 is fun in an entirely different way (laughs wickedly).
Sometimes it's amazing to see how much differently things become than we perceive them. If I were to encounter the twelve year younger me, though, I wouldn't tell him to do anything different. All in all, I believe our journey has been a good one.
But I WOULD tell him to get a little extra sleep. And that maybe losing a few extra pounds back then could help.