The Great Pendulum of Freedom

The girls are all curled up on the couch with their dad watching little French speaking children talk to their parents in these cute little home videos on youtube.  They love to hear the kids talk in their native language and some are so articulate at such a young age that it makes it all the more intriguing for them to watch.  Maybe they will all pick up some French in the mean time.  Who knows?  The boys are at a friend's house for the weekend.  I hope they have some much needed fun and freedom. 

Freedom.  They were always free.  Not free to be stupid and endanger themselves etc., but free in the areas of life they should be allowed to roam, be and do.  My kids, unfortunately, may not have always felt that way, but I hope they do now.  Freedom to walk and breathe how you may in society comes from God not from man or amoeba or parent.  Well, an amoeba may prohibit your freedom but it certainly doesn't grant it.  Or it may if it does not consume your well being.  Oh, anyway...

The older they get the more they want to branch out and drift away and I wonder why.  When I was their age I couldn't wait to be on my own so why this process comes as a surprise I don't know.  I shouldn't wonder.  I should realize that this is so totally normal.  Swinging, drifting.  Isn't that what we want?  We parents wait for these moments our whole lives for our kids to be totally self sufficient and able to slide away from us and stand on their own two feet that never seem to stop growing.  Anxiety builds in them to become older and to be able to do more and more adult things.  They dream of the perfect car and the freedom they'll achieve once they can drive.  Drive where?  Away.  Away from me to somewhere or someone else.  It's good.  It's normal.  My son longs to travel the world wide.  And I don't doubt for a minute that he will.  That's him, that's how he is.  

I thought it wouldn't ever come, this independence day. Slowly more and more of the younger children, my children, are joining the ranks of that ever swinging pendulum toward the self sufficient model.  And just like they didn't need my help much for learning how to hold up their heads or how to eat or how to walk, stand or crawl, in many ways they did not need my help for these times of finding who they are and gaining confidence.  I had a hand in some of who they are, but who they are was stretched out in front of them like a never ending road needing two feet to travel upon it with or without my help.  And that pendulum of freedom swings.  It picks up a steady beat to swing to and stays constant, it's relentless actually.  But a pendulum swings away and it always swings back again.  It will take them away, but it will always bring them back.  At least that is what I hope.