Git Er Done by Dr. Juan Harrison
“You want the rest of my cupcake? I just ate the icing.” “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll have it for dessert later with my two dollar cheeseburger from Burger King.” Nothing really profound here. It just sorta epitomized our almost fifty year marriage. Together we accomplished the goal – eat the cupcake. For a lot of you it was who’s dropping off the kids and who’s picking them up. Not every couple is that organized. For 25 years as a school principal I always felt like it was a small victory when every kid was gone at the end of the day. Sometimes we had to put a note on the door saying we had taken Judy or Emma to a relative or friend’s house after waiting a long while for the parent. Things come up. Wires get crossed. We never wanted to leave a child in an unsafe situation. Sometimes we just stayed at school until someone, even grandma or aunt, arrived. It truly does take a village.
After raising kids and maybe even grandkids, a lot of us could probably run our own business. Some of you do or did. It’s no small feat meeting everyone’s needs from cradle to adulthood and beyond. Grabbing hold of that last dollar bill and tugging and pulling it to pay that last bill was no simple trick.
I’m not saying we need a medal or ribbon, but I don’t think a little pat on the back like my wife has her PK students do isn’t warranted for a job well done. You don’t really want to think back and calculate what it cost to rear a child, but whatever the statistics say, it wasn’t enough. It was more, much more.
Sleep or lack thereof in the baby years. Light sleeping during the teen and young adult years, waiting to hear their vehicle pulling into the drive and the front door closing as the refrigerator door opened almost simultaneously. Maybe it was the sound of sobs and tears falling from a bedroom after a young love had just disintegrated.
Maybe you experienced Chapter Two as you’ve taken in a young brood or been blessed with a grand or two to raise while an adult child turns over responsibility for the raisin to you. I frequently said I couldn’t have had school without the help of some grandparents or even aunts and uncles helping fill in the gap not filled by the parents.
It’s such a big job, tough job, helping manage the lives of the young and restless. Sometimes I think the kids were more flexible and adaptable with some crazy lives than us adults were. They just wanted some love and security. For a lot of us we wanted the same thing. I hope they appreciated our efforts.
By Dr. Juan Harrison
