But as I'm sure you already know, the nest is never really "empty". And there
will come a time when you will enjoy your new found "freedom".
I'm going through it now, and agree with all you say. My new found "freedom" will really come to pass when I am retired, and have grandchildren I can totally spoil. I'm gleefully looking forward to my son's son especially, telling him exactly how HIS father thought HIS father (me) should raise a son and what the son should be allowed to do. Should be lots of fun!!
Sounds like you, too, did a wonderful job with your children. I have what I think is a well earned sense of great pride in mine, all of whom are doing wonderfully and are assets to society and a great credit to their family. I would like to take all the credit, but of course their mother had something to do with it <bg>, and genetics have to be counted in. Before I started teaching, and still to some degree before I had my own kids, I was strongly of the opinion that nature played little part in who children turned out to be, and that if they weren't perfect it was of course the parents fault. Now that I've raised my own I realize that is nonsense, and that while we can affect to some degree who they are and how they act, and of course can provide or withhold the resources for them to develop their particular talents, encourage or discourage them from growing the directions they want to, etc., to a very large degree they are who they are the moment they emerge into the world (indeed, long before that) and there's nothing we can do to change their basic nature.
Which is enormously reassuring to me as a parent! |
