School’s Never Out for the Learner

This can’t be right. My son is not really going off to college next year. Heck, it was only a year or so ago I was coaching him in baseball, when “winning” a game meant less than the snow cone that followed. For the record, I stopped coaching when the 9 year-olds had better strategy than I did.

Nope, he can’t be going off to college. Because it was only a few months back that I drove he and a friend to a dance, filled with anticipation and anxiety about actual dancing, or perchance a kiss. Giddy expectation, largely unspoken, filled the car.

Men – though deemed to have the emotional capacity of cauliflower – can sense these things. We just don’t talk it to death.

Surely, we’re not selecting colleges for my boy. Not the one for whom I was just shopping for the used truck that’s been in our driveway now for 2 years.

Fathers know, but find it hard to swallow. Those who work at working, selected to slay the dragon of financial stability and craft creation know: the time comes too quickly. We were even repeatedly warned, “the time will come too quickly.”

But as with our universal inability to ask directions when clearly lost, we admit and accept not. Our inner pioneer is either comparatively blind or comparatively naïve, “It’ll be different; We’ll figure it out. I’ve got time.” It kind of was; we sort of did; time is up.

Now, with swelled pride I watch this accomplished high school senior weave through the college maze. Yet I also hear faint strains of Cats in the Cradle in the background. A man knows.

Here’s hoping he becomes famously wealthy in record time so he can support me and my eternally-patient wife in a lifestyle to which he’s become accustomed.

Click for: 3 Lessons My Children Taught Me, 2 Lessons I hope I taught them, and 1 We All Keep Re-Learning

3 Lessons My Children Taught Me

1. “This isn’t your childhood; you already had yours.” We have all seen other parents “living vicariously” through their kids, which – to me – is a nice way of saying, “Hey, I was a loser, so I’m going to FORCE you to correct my mistakes!” This of course, renders them a bigger loser. Will they ever learn? I once found myself attempting to create a museum-quality display “with” my son for a 5th grade project. I reeled back, seeing my own horrifically ill-designed volcanoes, and decided: it’s his grade, not mine. Thankfully, this extracted me from all future projects, except for the semi-regular mad dash to Hobby Lobby 7 seconds before they closed because the project was “just remembered”.

2. “The degree to which you object now is likely the identical degree to which your parents objected then. So how’d that work out?” Oh shut up. Next question please.

3. It is possible to learn new levels of love, understanding, and patience. Gandhi would be proud. When you’re young, you love your mother, and probably your dog. Then you love your spouse. And you think that’s it. Then your children come along, and a whole new wave of capacity appears. If you’re really fortunate, you recognize that God loved you enough for any of this to happen in the first place.

2 Lessons I Hope I Taught Them

1. It’s good to experiment. No, not with drugs or seeing if pregnancy will REALLY happen, but combine things that are not often combined. The “norm” really isn’t. Poke at an old problem with a new solution; who says you “shouldn’t” wear a t-shirt under a short-sleeved shirt? Try the oysters for crying out loud (my son once tasted dog food, of his own volition, when we were actually cooking steak that same night). Kids are going to experiment. I say let ‘em. Better with clothes and hairstyles than with car keys and alcohol.

2. Persuasion, Influence, and Decisions form your life. Maybe you should learn how to direct them, instead of being directed by them. This is a gray matter subject at best. I hope my children know what is trying to get “sold” to them and more importantly, how. Further, strong stands are often for movie heroes only, so I hope they understand that deftly-guided influence works as well, at a lower blood pressure.

1 Lesson We All Keep Relearning

1. Other people are really strange. Good thing we’re perfectly normal.


Yes, my son really is going to college. He’s naturally smart, handsome, comes from unflawed genetics, all that. So if you head the endowment at a high-caliber college where scholarship money flows onto the manicured grounds, send a link to your application. I’ll get back with you, soon as I face the fact that this is really happening.


Your Turn:

What Lessons Did Your Children Teach You?

Do any of your children work with you? What lessons are YOU learning from that?