Our children are amazing. My son excelled at school. He was GT material and had been honored by Duke University to take the ACT in the seventh grade. He was fantastic in baseball. The coaches and teammates loved him. His music was phenomenal. Right off the bat he was competing and winning. He even went to All-Region as a 7th grader, and got in. His college application was going to be fantastic. My daughter was running on that golden path as well. She excelled in school, took piano, played volleyball, and started gymnastics. Her teachers adored her. We had volleyball coaches clamoring for her to join their team, and she was in intermediate gymnastics inside of 3 months with her natural flexibility. The American Dream was ours.
We had done everything we were ‘supposed’ to do. There we were again. Everything was perfect. The children were in the best schools. We had them in music and sports to ensure they would have those extracurricular activities needed for college application. We had the big house with a pool, an SUV for carting the kids and their friends around, college savings plan all set up, the latest and greatest clothes, the current electronics for gaming, cell phones for all of us, and paving the road like we were supposed to for our children. After all, that’s what you’re supposed to do right? Get good grades in school, get into college, get a great job, get married, buy a house, have kids, etc.
It only took four years this time. Of course, the entire four years that feeling stayed. Something was missing. What was it? My husband’s pipe dream was repeated often. He had a countdown to retirement. I frequently pointed out that our daughter would still be in middle school when he wanted to retire. He would have to work till she was through college. We owed our kids having all those great chances. Our time would have to wait. We realized we were our parents. We were repeating the same cycle we had been taught. Don’t get me wrong, it was fantastic. We loved our life, but that feeling of being unsatisfied remained. It all began to unravel for me when I saw a post by a twelve year old on Facebook. It was a paper about what was the point of life. I wish I could find the post as I would relay the exact verbiage here. But the last line stuck with me anyway. “We’ve all been taught the cycle of get good grades, get a degree, get a good paying job, get married, buy a house, have kids, repeat. But has anyone ever stopped to ask the question: Why?”
I'll stop there for now. Stay tuned. More is on the way.....
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