More parenting lessons from Atticus Finch

I was reading this horrendous book by someone who is moderately famous and I about puked. The only saving grace was that I didn't pay a thing to read that drivel.

What struck me about this father wasn't his selfishness. He outed himself as being selfish and questioned whether he could be a father knowing how wrapped up he is in himself. It wasn't the snobbery of his Gucci, Hermes coitture. It wasn't the dosh he doled out on therapy. It wasn't the Aspen vacations, his colorful language, his familiarity with the famous. It was the unhappiness his selfishness caused and his complete obliviousness to it.

He told a story of how he broke down crying when his daughter no longer needed him to swim. It was time for her to learn on her own and that just rocked his world in an unexpected way - unexpected for him at least.

I know parents cry at these kinds of moments and that's not a bad thing. However this story was the epitome of what was ailing this unhappy and anxious guy. His kids fulfill a need for him. His kids are an expression of who he is and in many ways he selfishly clings to the kids so they can fulfill his needs but I doubt he'd ever see it as being selfish. He was fulfilled in those moments with his kids and when that moment was over his world got shaken.

Granted if we don't appreciate the people in our lives here and now, we don't get another chance. However if we take a page from Atticus Finch we might learn to appreciate our kids as they grow and to rejoice when they do things on their own because as parents our fulfillment comes in doing our jobs. Our fulfillment comes in the "doing".

This weekend we bought a gift from Napa Valley for Monkeyboy and Peach Pit. I cried my little eyes out not because we dropped half a grand on bottles of wine but because we bought something special for them. We bought them each bottles of Reserved Wine for:

the one day if they are called to marriage
the one day if she is called to profess her vows
the one day if he is called to the ordained priesthood

One day so much like any previous day but it will be the one day where my role as mother will change, where his role as son, her role as daughter will change.  I cried happy tears because that will be a moment I hope that I will have done a good job in all those little moments because I don't get a do-over.