Your Children Are Not You

I told my husband at lunch today my goal for the year is to remember our children are not me. Which is ironic, because I think that is my goal every year. In fact, I found a blog entry I wrote almost a year ago to the date titled - wait for it - "Your Children Are Not You." This is apparently a resolution and goal that never sticks.

What is fascinating is I seem to have a harder time remembering this notion for my daughter than my son. My son is truly his own person - long hair, apathetic about sports, de-bunker of gender stereotypes. My daughter, my beautiful, independent-thinking, artistic, creative, introverted 15-year-old child whom I love so much and still so often think should be a miniature reflection of me.

One of my ongoing and rather ridiculous hang-ups is my daughter's lack of interest in school activities. In fact, she recorded a podcast during school yesterday, representing students who did not join extracurricular activities. My reaction to her ongoing apathy to joining organizations is embarrassment, worry, guilt, shame. And I realized today where some of those emotions are coming from: The sense that if I were her, in high school, I would be more involved.

But even though we may both have two X chromosomes, we have divergent personalities, priorities, goals, and approaches to life. Why do I expect my own path in life will be the same as my daughter's journey? I think some of this comes from a desire for safety and security. If our children conform to our visions for them and follow a similar journey to our own, their journey seems well-defined.

But my daughter is not me. Our children are not us. We do not create them. They are on loan from God. And we have the wonderful, amazing, terrifying, inspiring task of guiding them as best we can.