Part of any
authentic
claim to
success
in raising
children
is there has to be no so-called "failure to launch". What this
means is what should inevitably
happen
with your
children
is they'll leave the home you
created
for them, the home they grew up in, and set out on their own
successfully
in life. On the
face
of it, it's oddly difficult to confront: what you're setting yourself
up for in raising your
children
in the best
way
you know
how
ie in the best
way
you
possibly
can, is having them leave you and go their own
way
without you. It's a
paradox:
you're teaching the people you most want to
be around,
to leave you. And that's
success???
Yes. Actually it is. Really.
When I
began
confronting this in
my own life
(if you're a
parent,
it's not a matter of if you'll confront this, but rather
when), what I also noticed is there's no avoiding it, and
neither is there anything unnatural or unusual about it. It's not
something that
happens
to any two or four or more
parents
uniquely. Rather it's something that
happens
across the board for all of us. There's nothing
personal
about it - although to be sure, it may show up as
personal
for you from
time
to
time.
This is
the way
it is for us
human beings
and our offspring. This is
the way
it has been and will be throughout the millennia.
By the
timemy children
were all of the age when they became, for all
intents
and purposes, independent of me, it was the culmination of at least a
twenty five year period in which everything I did, thought, and planned
was directed toward providing whatever they needed to have the best
life they could
possibly
have. So it wasn't just that when they became independent of me, our
time
together was reduced to a fraction of what it formerly was. It was my
entire
way of being
with them and
relating
to them had to undergo a sea-change too. Whatever I'd done and
whichever
way
I'd been
being
with them until then, was suddenly (for the most part) no longer
applicable. And a lot of whatever
worked
until then, no longer
worked
from then on too.
At first, it wasn't comfortable. It was disconcerting - to say the
least. Eventually I realized in order to reconcile it with
my own life,
I would need a new
way of being
with my grown
children,
a new
way
that didn't require our
relationship
to be defined by us
being
in
close
proximity to each other, or by me arranging
my life
to
fulfill
/ provide something on which they depended. If our
relationship
was still defined by
being
in
close
proximity to each other, that would be a totally untenable situation.
Months passed before I realized the full extent of what I'd
gotten
myself into, some of it so unexpected as to be deemed accidental, even
collateral. While applicable to my new
relationship
with
my children,
it also has ramifications with anyone I want to
be around,
and yet (for whatever reason) can't be. Even if it's impossible to be
in
close
proximity to someone, it's
possible
to be with them, as long as I'm willing to
create
the
context
for
being
with them out of
time
and space. Having a
relationship
with someone out of
time
and space, is a
relationship
which acknowledges and grants
being
to them, regardless of where they are, regardless of
how
far away they are, and even (most unexpectedly) regardless of whether
they're dead or alive (it's
true!).
It literally
rewrites
the
game
plan for
being
with people.
Healthyrelationships
become
possible
where in situations limited by
time
and space, they once weren't.
Being
very
closelyconnected
becomes
possible,
even with people who are far away.