867-5309

Image by *Chantel Williams* via Flickr

My dear Sweet­Boy,
I hate to sound so cliché’ but the lit­tle talk we had before school today was more painful for me to say than for you to hear. It’s so com­mon for boys your age to want more respon­si­bil­i­ties because they’re so close to being teenagers. You’re want­ing to spread those wings out and soar, but your wings aren’t fully devel­oped yet. If you try to fly before you’re ready, you’ll fall. Yet even though you want to fly, you want to stay a boy. “Weren’t you the one that told me to be a kid and stop being so seri­ous?” Yes, honey, but you were 6 and you were so seri­ous. You didn’t know how to pre­tend. You had no imag­i­na­tion. You finally found that being care-free and invent­ing sto­ries in your head was a good thing and fun, but now you’re get­ting older and it’s actu­ally past time to start tak­ing on respon­si­bilites. I want to reit­er­ate what I said…there’s a time for every­thing and when it’s time to play I want you to play hard with no cares in the world. How­ever, when it’s time to focus and be relied on, you need to step up. It’s just a part of grow­ing up. Show­ing respon­si­bil­ity brings with it privileges.

A frus­trat­ing side of par­ent­ing is strug­gling with regrets. I should have made him start clean­ing up after him­self sooner. I should have paid more atten­tion to this or that. Maybe I should have been more strict. Maybe I should have been more gen­tle. It plays like a bro­ken record in our head. Some day I pray that you have won­de­ful chil­dren that make you rethink your actions. It’s worth it in every sin­gle way. I hope one day you will look back to this day and know that I mean well and love you more than my own life…truly a gift from God.

Your father and I will help gen­tly guide you through this bit of grow­ing pain (and the ones to come). You will come out a stronger, more dis­ci­plined young man. I am already so proud of who you are, I can’t imag­ine being any more proud, yet as you grow I know I will be.

I know, why don’t I take you out for ice­cream tonight…just you and me. After you do the dishes…