My daughter and I spend a lot of time in the car. In addition to the everyday of getting her to this or that activity, the fact that she lives part-time with me and part-time with her mom, and we don’t live in the same town, means we have more car time than most.
We make the best of it. We listen to a lot of music, and we have some great conversations. While certainly there are times when the driving gets to be a bit of a drag, overall, it’s time I enjoy spending with her.
Recently, though, I’ve noticed a subtle shift. It’s not negative, it’s just different. In the past, our conversations and her observations have been very internally focused. We’ve talked about what’s on our minds, the music on the radio, what’s going on at school and work. We’ve focused on our little world.
This past weekend, I’ve noticed that she’s becoming more observant of what’s going on around us – a huge house, an unusual tree, the cigarette boat in the drive that seems out of place in our modest neighborhood. Her attention has turned from what’s going on with us to what’s going on in the world. It’s subtle, but noticeable, and the more I consider it, expected right about now.
We’re at that pivotal moment in her life when she starts to press against the bonds of parenting, to look outward to what she’s going to be, and how she’s going to interact with her world. For the next three years, school is pretty much what it’s going to be. Her family life is stable. We’re not planning to move again before she finishes high school. We’ve built her a platform from which she can look out on the world and decide her place in it.
That, to me, feels like parenting success.
She's starting to press against parenting bonds. We've built her a platform so she can look out on the world and decide her place in it. That is parenting success. Click To Tweet