Having kids is interesting. It changes the way you look at yourself, and it changes the way you look at the world around you. But it seems that it's not changing my perspective in the ways that it's `supposed to'. I've always heard that your priorities shift; that the scope of your own dreams changes (generally wizening); that part of the maturation process is that parents concede to the load associated with raising kids--especially when the kids are two or three years old. Well, that's what people say. Parents say things like, "I'm sorry, my temper is just short because I've been dealing with my kids". I think I do frustrate more easily than when I was younger, and a big part of my general level of `frustrability' is actually due to my toddler--but not in the way that you probably think I mean. It's not because he is tiring or frustrating or that I'm `using up my patience on him', but rather that he's just so... amazing. That everything for him is epically hard, but that he almost always just does it anyway; that he exclaims `it's hard!' not with a tone of frustration or contempt or scorn or even agitation, but with joy--that, for him, `life is just full of hard problems that must all be solved and isn't it wonderful!'. And I find it's all too easy for me to go on extending that as a standard for others, and as a metric for judging myself; and that it's all too hard when we grown-ups all fail. He's my Little Prince. [Reply] |
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