Birthright

A friend just called to invite my son to her daughter's birthday party. It's a lovely gesture, more so because the birthday girl is my son's best friend and he's the only boy invited. There's one small problem: it's an ice skating party, and my son has never skated on ice in his life. Normally, I wouldn't be so preoccupied, after all, the child was quite successful and proud of his ability to pick up in-line skating at school, but this is different. His confidence is already shaken.

For the past three summers I have invested in swimming lessons for my two older children. My father taught me at a very young age. The Jewish Sages charge parents with the responsibility of teaching their young to swim. For me it is up there with reading, writing, arithmetic, and music. It's simply not a choice. My children must know how to swim.

This past week my husband signed up the older two children for swimming lessons at a local high school. Today was the first day, and after piano lessons, I rushed them out the door proceeding to get hopelessly lost. It was an inauspicious beginning to the endeavor. After three summers of lessons, my son still can't float, however, I was determined that this time would be different. But when his piano teacher turned to him and said, "You do not like to be corrected!" I should have packed it in for the day.

My son doesn't just dislike being corrected, he is outright resistant to learning at times. He reluctantly got into his swimsuit, and after hearing the instructor ask him to swim out ten yards and return, he simply freaked out. He clambered out of the pool, and refused to budge. Do you want to get dressed? Do you want to go back in? I asked my shivering boy with the mixture of anger, disappointment, and fear on his face. I tried to comfort him and coax him back in. I finally got impatient and told him to stop fighting everyone.

I know it was a terrible thing to say. The poor boy was terrified. He didn't need me to make him feel worse. But the frustration and impatience that has been plaguing me for what seems like ages crept up again like a nasty virus. In a nutshell, this is what I find so desperately difficult about parenting: we try our best to give our children the tools they need to be happy and successful - a good education, healthy meals, music, sports, swimming, a nice, clean environment to live in - and they resist it at every step.

Children don't want to do homework, they reject the healthy foods we offer, they mess up their rooms. Generation after generation of children have consistently rejected their parents values, and lovingly passed on lessons, to beat out the most difficult, trying paths of their own. Why shouldn't my son fight me every step of the way? I fought my parents, too. My father wanted me to learn to play tennis. I refused, and I am kicking myself today that I didn't listen to him then. My parents paid for countless piano and percussion lessons. I never practiced. My parents urged me to make careful and rational decisions about my education. I got a masters degree in Irish History.

The list of wonderful skills, lessons, and values that my parents tried so hard to pass on to me, like a cherished gift, is endless. The number I summarily rejected is depressingly endless, too. And every no made my life that much more difficult. I see the same stubborn, defiant streak in my son, and it scares me. And each and every time I make the same mistake of fighting it, which predictably makes things worse. It's as natural that I want my son to avoid the many mistakes I made in life, as it is for him to want to make them. At eight years old, it's already his independent, unique, special life.

Once again, I find myself envious of my husband. Why can't I be more accepting? More patient? Why can't I step back and see the bigger picture? In time, he will learn to swim. He will allow himself to openly profess love for the music that has him so secretly taken in. He will grow to be a wonderful, smart, caring, kind young man (b'ezrat HaShem, ptui, ptui, hamza, hamza, hamza), if I only step back and let him.

I dream of passing on the best for my children: the study habits I never acquired, the athleticism I fought for years, the creativity, and good sense I somehow missed out on. Instead, I'm passing on the worst: the stubbornness, the impatience, the insistence on doing it all his way.

I know many wonderful things came out of my master plan. I have experienced many unique and magical moments in my life that would not have been possible if I had been the "good girl" my parents did their best to raise. Like me, my son will, God willing, land on his own two feet, regardless of my best intentions for him. He will make his way his way, not mine. And because he is smarter than me, he'll most likely make better decisions.

I'm not nervous that he won't be able to ice skate. I know that kid can do anything he puts his mind to. I worry, as always, that he won't allow himself to try.

More importantly, I have to let him make that decision for himself.