Paying My Tab

A friend of mine was recently sharing her frustrations about her son. Her boy had taken a test at school and had not done as well as expected. She was worried, vowing that no son of hers would test badly, excluding him from academically rigorous junior high schools. She would have him study harder, and retake the test next year. The child is in kindergarten.

The conversation led me to wonder about what kind of legacy we are imparting on our children. It is inevitable that we try to course-correct with the next generation those aspects that we feel were lacking in our own childhoods. And while this is not, in itself, a bad thing (isn't the definition of insanity repeating the same behaviors while expecting different results?), it is such a slippery slope to making our kids pay for our own perceived shortcomings. When do we cross the line from nurturing and encouraging to pushing our own agendas, compensating for our own mistakes?

It is easy to look backwards and make a list of things we don't want to repeat - my mother's forcing her love of the guitar on me in the form of much-hated lessons, my father's impatience with doing projects with me, taking them over instead - but it is far more difficult to turn a critical eye towards the future, and try to predict what baggage we will lay at our kids' doorsteps.

What will Otter learn from me that I may not want her to? Will my sarcasm, which sometimes comes off as cruelty, rub off on her? Will she learn my impatience for people that I perceive aren't doing things as efficiently or as well as I imagine they should be done? Will she inherit my "tone" (you know, the one my mother always accuses me of having)?

Moreover, how do I teach her to find the balance in her life that we all struggle to achieve? Is it possible to impart on her the importance of embracing her potential without succumbing to blindly chasing the "grade"? To love knowledge for knowledge's sake, and to understand that there are many different kinds of intelligence (yet not use that as an excuse to slack off)? To be kind without being a pushover? To be strong without being willful? To be brave without being reckless?

Going in, I know that I will make mistakes, and have made my peace with it. I just hope I'm able to do so with my eyes and mind open, and (as one TV therapist often says) not make her pay for my tab.