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Childhood Milestones
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I’m excited that season 3 of Orphan Black has started and that I’m podcasting about it again, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about parents raising children.
Yep, I forgot how much fun it is to podcast about a TV show. If you’re a fan of Orphan Black check out my show at solotalkmedia.com
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Did you know that A cow gives nearly 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime? No wonder Nabisco makes so many Oreo cookies.
Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
Nobody ever said parenthood was easy. Just like everything else in life, there are ups and downs to raising children, and if you’re lucky the former outweighs the latter.
Along the road that is child rearing there are certain childhood milestones one may encounter. Your child’s first words, first solid foods, and of course first steps. There’s also a flip side to that, in your child’s first tantrum or first scraped knee.
Either way, these childhood milestones are something to be remembered, with laugh or sorrow, as stories of who they were at that time of their life.
Some of these childhood milestones are met with celebration, such as the first day of school. I remember taking photos as my son Ryan stood there wearing new clothes and shoes, sporting a brand new backpack he picked out himself. Ryan was eager to start school and barely tolerated our parental hugs as we dropped him off for his first day. We were lucky. I remember other parents with crying, clinging children begging them not to leave. All these years later I’m sure those parents remember their moment as clearly as I remember mine.
As parents, our job is to ease our kids through these childhood milestones. But sometimes we’re the ones that are tested. I remember the first time Ryan was invited for a sleepover at a schoolmate’s house. He was so excited but Kim and I didn’t feel his enthusiasm. We had met Ryan’s friend several times but we didn’t know his parents very well, and now we were to entrust our child into their care for a night. With trepidation, we put on brave faces and allowed him to go. I stayed up late that night just in case he phoned for me to go get him, but the call never came and Ryan had a great time in what was the first of many sleepovers. Maybe I should call this one a parental milestone.
Some childhood milestones are specialized and are experienced by some and not by others. Ryan was lucky enough to win his grade school’s science fair two years in a row and he’ll remember the thrill of receiving those awards for the rest of his life. But Ryan wasn’t very athletic so he never experienced the camaraderie so many other children feel in being part of a school sports team.
We parents are there every step of the way, encouraging our children when they need encouragement and consoling them when they need consoling. Sometimes coaching them in what to do and other times allowing them to discover things on their own. Knowing that mistakes are just another way learning.
An amazing thing happens throughout this process. Childhood milestones lead to more childhood milestones, and our children grow, learn, mature, and day by day, year by year, we start to see traces of the adults they will one day become.
As our children become teenagers and want, notice I didn’t say require, less of our attention, we discover different, sometimes subtler ways of teaching and encouraging them. At this stage of their life the childhood milestones may not be as noticeable but they’re still there.
They way they form relationships with their peers is different. The way they view adults change. The way they see the world isn’t the same anymore. All these things affect them in ways that we as parents have little or no control over. But we continue to love and support them.
As they continue to grow they become more independent. They learn to drive. They get part time jobs. They get boyfriends and girlfriends. And although they may scoff at the idea, these are still childhood milestones along their journey.
Eventually, the time will come for them to make decisions for their future. It’s a lot to ask of a teenager, to decide on a career path. Some with find it easy and others not so much. This could be one of the last childhood milestones of their life. As parents we must continue to guide them and advise them, but ultimately the decision is up to them.
Soon our job as rearing parents will come to an end as our kids choose a path that will take them into adulthood. They may stick around for a while, or they may move away leaving us with the fond memories of all they wonderful childhood milestones we witnessed as they grew up.
Ultimately, it’s up to them.
What did I learn?
My son Ryan finished his first year of university last week. Kim and I fully expected him to move back home for the summer and find a job. We realized that this was probably going to be his last summer at home since the course he’s taking includes a summer co-op job posting after his second year. So, for the last couple of months I’ve been submitting his resume to job postings for summer students around our area, some of which called to set up interviews for when he came home.
Ryan also filled out an application at his favourite outdoors store not to far from the university. My son is heavy into backpacking, canoeing, and camping and his dream job was to work at this particular store. As luck would have it, he received a call for an interview, and last Wednesday he was offered, and accepted the job.
Kim and I are thrilled for him. We know how much he wanted to work for this company and how well he’ll fit in there. But we also realize that this means our son is gone and we don’t get our last summer with him.
He’s rented a house not far from school with several classmates and will be making Ottawa his home for the next several years. To top it off, Ryan told his sister that she can have his room. Something she’s coveted ever since he’s started university.
Luckily for us Ottawa is only an hour drive from where we live so we’ll still get to see him from time to time. But our son has grown up and has left the nest which is truly the last of the childhood milestones. We will always be his parents and we will continue to love and support him, but from now on, our role is no longer the same.
I said at the start, nobody ever said parenthood was easy. Just like everything else in life, there are ups and downs to raising children, and if you’re lucky the former outweighs the latter.
As I look back at the parenting job Kim and I did. I can honestly say that we did good because the ups greatly outweighed the downs. Ryan has turned into an amazing young man and we couldn’t be more proud of him. And as he begins his own journey into adulthood, Kim and I can look back fondly at all the childhood milestones that brought him here, and smile.
I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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