I shaved my head this morning.
The reasons were simple. My grandmother's funeral is tomorrow and I don't want to have to worry about my hair, which can often be a mess and take hours to look halfway decent.
Yup I'm as bald as the day I was born and it feels fucking fantastic I must admit. I mean, think about it: your scalp never sees the light of day. A little sun, a little air, might do it good.
Tomorrow's the funeral and I'm supposed to be the pallbearer. This past year has not exactly been an athletic one for me, so if I'm honest I'm a little concerned about whether I can carry my end of the casket, which was enormously heavy the last time that I was a pallbearer. That was for my grandmother on my father's side.
I suppose, for a lot of people born around the same time that I was, your thirties are when you lose your grandparents.
That got me to thinking what my kid's relationships with their grandparent (my parents) might be like. Considering my relationship with them is a little complicated and strained I wonder precisely how I'll navigate that hurdle if I'm lucky enough to have children myself.
Actually, come to think of it, forget their relationship with their grandparents. How will I relate to my kids? I mean, these little rugrats will be growing up in the time of all sorts of miracles I could scarcely have dreamed of when I was their age. On top of that I don't really plan on replicating the parental style of either of my parents. That means I'll have to come up with my own way of doing things. What might that look like?
I've given it some thought over the years, and I've realized a few key things that are going to be super important to raising whole, intelligent, self-sufficient, and happy human beings.
Space. Star Trek said it's the final frontier, but when it comes to parenting it should be among the first. After a certain age they'll be no mucking about in their room without their knowledge. It also means not spreading their personal business around the family or barraging them with questions about their romantic interests, etc. Having a space where they can think and grow without disruption is critical, and it's something I desperately wish I'd had.
Autonomy is the next thing on the list. Yes children, especially young ones, need a lot of guidance, but many parents (see mine) forget that to an equal extent they need to experiment with making their own decisions in the safety of home before they are released into the stressful wider world. Autonomy means allowing children to make not only small decisions, but to have some input on the larger household discussions as well (i.e. where we'll be going to vacation, etc.).
Respect is the next one. This one will have to be earned by showing they can handle the space and autonomy that I hand them to make healthy decisions. As they earn it, they'll get more of the first two.
If this seems like a passive complaint about my parents well, it may be. However, it is important to be honest about the good and bad sides of our upbringing. To do otherwise is to doom ourselves to repeat the mistakes of previous generations. Or worse, make worse ones.
And that brings me around to my grandmother. She improved upon what she received in order to make a good life for my mother. My mother improved upon that for me. And I, the culmination of her life-long dedication to family, will place her in her final resting place.
With that the torch, in a final way, gets passed over to my mother and aunts and I myself must prepare for my time to carry it. And this brain of mine, housed in a shaved head or not, is racking itself to be ready to do it justice.
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