Let's keep talking
I’ve heard that as parents we actually have very little impact over the people our children become. We are not designers, but shepherds or as Kahlil Gibran calls us, bows to arrows. I suppose I only half buy that. I want my son to grow up to be an interesting person, who’s been exposed to a whole world of things, who’s found things he loves to do (and identified from experience things that aren’t for him), and most of all has endless memories of fun and adventure. If that doesn’t happen, that’s on me.
But it’s a big world, and there’s a lot to learn and do. I developed a system to help keep us on track. Because childhood’s going to go by in a flash, and if we have the attitude that “we’ll get to it eventually” it probably won’t ever happen. Is there a lot of me in this system? Is it fundamentally based on what I think is important, based on my life experience? Absolutely. But it’s just a start, and he has a whole life to dream of achievements of his own. And hopefully I will have been more than just a shepherd.