Printer Friendly Version - Go Out and Make Mistakes

It was a sharp slap in the face to look around the home in which our three boys were raised and see the dusty evidence of a childhood that did not leave much room for mistakes.Photo courtesy of Lisa Nee

Our dad was undoubtedly a brave man; he survived the Battle of the Bulge, came home to fight even harder for peace, pulled neighbors from the rubble of tornadoes, was the last to leave our burning home. But to say, “go out and make mistakes,” to a teenage daughter? That takes real courage.

So, it was a sharp slap in the face to look around the home in which our three boys were raised and see the dusty evidence of a childhood that did not leave much room for mistakes, trophies and certificates, some for just showing up, newspaper clippings and team photos in sports that were supposed to be played for fun and experience.

We attended one of those sports, where 10-year-olds were playing basketball, the scoreboard big and buzzers blaring. Midway through the game the score had become so lopsided that our son gave the ball to a player on the losing team and said, “I think it’s your turn now.” Above the groan from the spectators in the bleachers a voice could be heard shouting “What were you thinking?” Together we decided that was the last time he needed to play basketball for fun and experience. Tall he is, too—their loss.

I, and most of my siblings, don’t remember taking SATs or applying to college; we must have because we all went and have degrees. We recall tests but none that shut down the school for days and came with rubber bracelets to prompt us to breathe.

If you wanted to know what we learned about engineering and risk analysis, you could meet us at the river and see how we were able to rig a rope swing and judge the parabolic arc. We learned to hold on to the rope long enough to miss the sandbar and yet, not so long as to land in the current that was strong enough to sweep you down river. Six, eight of us, something like that, and we all survived. Eventually, an adult tried the swing, misjudged, broke his leg and that was the end. A professor he was, the adult with the broken leg.

Meritocracy slips slyly into our lives. We sign our kids up for karate or dance lessons, not because we had a vision of a prodigy, but because it is screen-free time with peers. At the conclusion of lessons, there is a recital or demonstration: your little preschooler trips along, waving to you from stage. It’s fun, it’s touching; just when your face is aching from smiling, each student is called by name to receive a trophy, their eyes and yours light up, and somewhere in the background you hear the first ding on the Pavlovian bell. Like the apple in Eden, affirmation for a parent is irresistible.

Being a mom or dad is not divided into graded semesters, it can’t be measured like stocks with profits and losses, and it never neatly wraps up like a sports game. No, parenting, I find, is a continuum of days filled with an equal part confidence and self-doubt, enduring love and fear.

Are we so different from the cliché of the middle-aged man looking for a trophy wife? Have we as parents tried to quell our insecurities with trophy kids? The sport, the pageant, the grade, the college, magnetized figures on minivans, are all in some meager way try to assure us that we are winning as a parent.

The competition has never been fiercer. I am not referring to getting into a college of distinction, but the struggle for our children’s hearts and minds. Never have drugs and guns been more attractive or available, no matter how we serve up the lesson of body image and sex, a digital version of oneself looks more delicious. Texting, tweeting, Instagram, YouTube, and apps yet to be imagined are all vying for the teachable-moments of which we are being shut out.

High school guidance offices across the United States create billboards and window displays announcing college acceptances. Perhaps, we would be better served by the “college of acceptance.” Students that feel accepted don’t hurt their peers.

No one can remember a time when it wasn’t the deeply held wish to give our children a life better than the previous generation. All too often a better life is measured in the tangible: homes, salaries, vacation destinations. None of us had the intention of leaving behind the legacy of preschoolers learning to shelter in place, active shooter drills, a sharp rise in teenage suicide, and a gap between the haves and have nots that is so huge it is as if we live in different countries with the same zip code.

Could we perhaps still achieve the dream of giving our kids a better life by leaving a legacy of compassion, tolerance, and fair play? A life where mistakes in youth is not the end of the world, but the beginning of the best kind of knowledge. Show them that all that glitters isn’t always a golden trophy, but sometimes it’s the sun skipping off the water, laughter at the end of a long day, or complete and utter silence.

I knew what he meant, not the big ones, not the kind of mistakes that hurt other people. I know what our dad meant because on the day his mother died, he also said this:

Lisa Nee of Madison is a writer and president of Allen/Nee Productions. She writes an occasional column, Such is Life, for Shore Publishing.

Safer on shore?Photo courtesy of Lisa Nee

Or, safer out at sea? Photo courtesy of Lisa Nee