Kids

Witchwoman put an offer on a house in Kansas City. That tells me that she has worked through her issues and arrived at a direction. She rightly wants to be near her children and grandchildren. I look forward to helping her with the place. Moreover, I look forward to visiting her there. Perhaps she might visit me here. I have to believe that we will be fine as a “thing”. I have come to care deeply for her family. She has a sister and brother-n-law who are quintessential parents. They raised the three great kids. Their oldest child, a boy, is in his 30s, married to the perfect wife, with three beautiful kids. He is the most responsibility young man I have ever met – and, being a former professor and advisor to hundreds, perhaps thousands of young people, that is saying a lot. Their middle child, a gorgeous girl, is married to the embodiment of responsibility, an accountant who is probably making contributions to his 501K and planning out his retirement now even though he is in his early 30s. The third child, also a girl, is Little Cutie. Her boyfriend and future husband would be a finalist in the best kid ever should there ever be such a contest. I sometimes wonder if the sister and brother-in-law know how lucky they are? I love my kids. They are wonderful people. But, they are not in the same ilk as the kids of the sister and brother-n-law. My kids are renegades. My dear son, a truly wonderful boy, is gifted and cursed by music. He can play anything. He abandoned the United States six years ago, opting for life in Prague, Czech Republic. He plays music there. Lots of music. Jazz and rock. He composes and experiments. I garnered from information from other sources that he has a girlfriend, although he has never told me about her. I doubt I will ever see him again in the US. If I want to see my grandkids, I will have to fly to Prague. My little girl, now 25, graduated from MU last December. Smart as a whip. Waiting tables at beer joints in Columbia. She is the combination of brains and beauty. The bottom line is that I sired independent children. Both are creative, fiercely self-contained, and tradition rejectionists. Yet, I love them beyond comprehension, as only a father could. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have the sister and brother-in-law children. I am not sure I would know how to deal with ideal children. My kids are exactly as they were raised. Perhaps, they are exactly like their parents. Sometimes I would like to sit down and split a bottle of wine and share a conversation with my kids but I realize that is not likely to happen. Neither has visited me here since the last time I paid for them to visit – a little over two years ago. The boy is not coming home from Europe anytime soon and the girl is talking about traveling internationally, not a word of coming to Alabama. I have learned some lessons from watching the wildlife here on the farm. As a rule, off-springs are expected to leave and live independently. Animals don’t seem to invest their relationships with as much sentiment as humans do. A friend told me recently about walking upon a fawn, laying in the grass, all alone. He went on to tell me that in deer culture, parents will often leave the fawn alone for long periods. I didn’t know that. But, it makes sense. Humans probably don’t do that enough, leave their off-springs alone. Rather, we hover and, in the end, wreck our kids future. I tried to avoid that and am now paying the price for raising two free-thinkers. So, I guess you pick your poison as a parent. Either you are a footnote in their lives or remain the flagpole around which they rally. The sister and brother-in-law have a great life with their kids constantly visiting and never really leaving while I, also, have a great life with kids who might remember my birthday but are not bothered by such artificial constructs as Fathers’ Day.