Said little Raleigh to me when we were going out for a ride on his balance bike, circling around the little Mr. Roger’s neighborhood I live in. Staying on the sidewalk. Wearing a helmet. Watching out for cars when we crossed the street together. Strange dogs on leashes. Wandering ducks from the pond looking for food.

A strange request? Perhaps. Probably just a thing he said in passing, with no deeper meaning involved. I could and did answer “Yes, honey”; of course, I meant only while he was in my care, but of course we didn’t talk about that. The simplest answer is the easiest with a three year old. As most all grandparents who have had both the blessing and the curse of remembering too much from their own child-rearing years, I know keeping a child safe is a huge duty and an overwhelming responsibility. There are so many possible ways for a child to be hurt; physically certainly, but emotionally often even worse. Because you never saw it coming.

Years later we will learn from our children, their therapists or their spouses, where we had in fact not kept our children safe. Where they had been harmed, usually unintentionally and often unknown for years, in ways we never realized were even possible, in part because we had yet to sort out our own emotions concerning our upbringing and our binding family ties. There isn’t enough time to do it all and keep on track with everything that is happening at lightning daily speeds while raising kids. As parents we do the best we can with what we know at the time. Unfortunately at first we only seem to know either how to instinctively repeat what we learned from our parents or to attempt the completely opposite approach, having learned as adults that what we absorbed as a child was not always beneficial, so perhaps the opposite of it would be better? Unfortunately the opposite usually was not better, just swinging the emotional pendulum to the other wrong side, rushing past the centered balance we wanted but had no way of recognizing. From unnoticed to hovered over. From neglected to spoiled. From discounted emotions to always being allowed very big feelings, both seeming unacceptable to us, but the unknown norm also somehow unattainable. Balance seemed very distance when viewed now from the other side. Where do we turn for guidance, and how will we recognize the center if we have never experienced it?

The things we most need to learn to embrace our best life are never really taught to the young, except perhaps in the school of hard knocks. We enter parenting with highest hopes, but it is the most complicated mess of responsibilities and job titles we will ever encounter, especially if we are picking up the slack for another parent, one either emotionally absent, physically or sometimes both. I used to think I was reparenting myself as fast as I could, while trying to navigate the potholes that may well show up in my children’s lives if I am not successful. It seemed like a wild race against time, and I often failed to be one step ahead of where they needed me to be.

We can only improve the gene pool little by little if we really pay attention and try harder and harder in the fog in which we often find ourselves. From dysfunctional to mis functional to what…normal? At the ripe age of 80, I can say I have yet to meet anyone coming from a ‘normal’ family, as everyone has ways they have had to make adjustments. Yet seeing those small positive gains made by my children as they parent are huge in our family legacy. I am always noticing those ever so slight increases and crediting them to the balance column in our generational inheritance. It isn’t easy. Yay team!!