Preparing your children for the future

This weekend our oldest son, Michael, along with 734 other students from his high school graduated in the 2010 commencements.

Commencement. I wonder who chose that word initially to term the graduation from their schooling life to that of an adult about to enter the workforce? It really is a great word if you think about it- commencement. The start of something new, not the end.

During the last few months, my wife and I have been a bit melancholy about this date. It seems like just yesterday our little boy was running around in my boots and learning how to walk and talk. And now, he is a strapping young man, taller than me, and quite a good example of a fine human being if I do say so myself.

But we still wonder if we did the right thing. Did we teach him to make the right decisions? Did we teach him to think of others? Did we teach him to honor his family, friends and God? Did we equip him with the right tools to be a successful husband and father? Perhaps only time will tell.

We are not experts by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, we are God-fearing people who are dedicated to the 3 most important things (we think) in life: God, Family and country. For us, there is no family without God, and we cannot imagine living without our faith let alone raising a family in this world so fraught with evil. The family and it’s governance in is chronicled in the Bible. I often joked when I was younger that we (or babies) don’t come with an owner’s manual. How wrong I was!

The Holy Bible has so many life lessons in being a son or daughter, father or mother, a law abiding citizen, yet so many people allows these fundamentals to escape them. The same book also speaks to being a good citizen- to obey laws and when necessary, defending your community or nation. This responsibility has grave responsibilities and is what makes veterans so special in our house. The service of others is perhaps the greatest gift God has given us for when we do serve others, we are doing so out of obedience to Him and love of others. And there are countless servants- the teachers we learned from, the civil servants of our towns who kept us safe or healthy, the people of God with whom we fellowship in church. Each plays an important role in our cultural experience.

I could say we did our “best”, but as long as there was one more lesson, one more question I could have imparted upon him, spent one more minute with him, then I did not do my best. As far as I am concerned, there is almost always just one more thing we can do in our professional or personal lives yet we continually come up short because we are more comfortable with coming up short.

Fortunately, as I opened, he is simply beginning something new. He is not leaving us to never be seen or heard from again. We will still be there when he needs us, even if he doesn't think he does, or if he is to make a mistake.

We are very proud of him- he learned many tough lessons, particularly this past year, but his talent is perhaps where my greatest failure is realized. He has a penchant for playing video games as many his age do, and consequently was not quite as dedicated to his studies as his contemporaries. What is frustrating is he has the ability to have done better based on his SAT score without really preparing for it and having taken it with a broken nose from a wrestling match that weekend. How much better could he have been? He is one of the sharpest young men I know, having more on the ball than some “adults” I know. That comes from his intensity I should think. Perhaps I should have been still firmer in my expectations for him. I do hope I did not do him a disservice.

All I know is I really wanted to be a different parent to my children than my parents were to me, and to that end, I am confident I have thus far been very successful.

I hope not only Michael but all his contemporaries, from all over the world, are open to experiencing life through the eyes of a Christian eye, are ready for the challenges ahead of them in this trying period of our existence, and they cultivate others along the way. I pray Michael will take the lessons we gave him and apply them and emerge the leader I believe he is. But once again, only time will tell, and it will, I pray, reveal to him what his reason for being is.