Homework?

What are your hopes and dreams for your children this year? Pretty weighty question to be asking parents as they are trying to rifle through open house night at the elementary school. Moving quickly from class to class to answer all the necessary information and paperwork in each class, so you can get those kids out of there and get your daughter to dance and go watch your nephew play football. It must be the question du jour, because both teachers asked us the same question. For my son I just wrote an infinity symbol with achievement written in the middle, mostly to baffle the teacher and also to speed things along. My daughter's teacher asked that we write a letter and send it with our daughter to school the very first day. Oh my, that poor teacher to have to read the endless drivel that we parents will spew out about our hopes and dreams for our children. How we hope they will climb the highest mountains and meet each challenge because they are geniuses that know no bounds. Yawn.
Here's a shocker, I have no hopes and dreams for my children. It's their lives. It's their hope, it's their dreams. I will not instill my hopes and dreams into them in an effort to mold their lives like I would like them to be. That's not my job. I will advise them, guide them and love them. That's all I have to do. If they tell me they want to be an architect, then I will help them figure out how they are going to achieve that(if only Costanza would have had such support). I will support them and cheer them on as they try to move through life. I will not tell them what they should do with their lives or set a goal out for them that they have no interest in achieving, or worse try to achieve it because if they don't, somehow they have failed me. It is their job to explore and report back to me on what they find. I'll help them translate their findings, but in the end their life is their gig. I have 3 pieces of advice for them: Don't break the law. Find someone that loves what you love. Learn to swim. Pretty easy really.
Parents may not like to hear this but the hopes and dreams we place on your children as they grow older are literally the boxes we place around them. A lot of times they will be the very obstacles they need to overcome in order to achieve what they truly want to achieve in this life. Once again a lot of therapists make a lot of money off of it, so I don't think I'm far off. If they say human beings have nearly 95%(it's around this number) of their behaviors locked in by 18 years of age, why would I try to over-incorporate my hopes and dreams into my kids? I ask them what they want to do, and yes they may tell me one thing and we do it for a month and they find out it isn't for them. Now we know. We of course talk about commitment and all those important values. Otherwise there are very few things I won't let them try (except baseball, never f$%^& baseball, overzealous parents and tournament organizers have ruined that sport. I'm just kidding, kids should play 4 baseball games in a day every Saturday for the most of the Summer. Everyone loves that.). When I was a child I remember I wanted to be almost anything, my Dad once told me I should be a lawyer because my mouth constantly ran and it was somewhat quick-witted(he used another term, but I'll stick with quick witted). Of course my Mom said being a lawyer wasn't any good because they are greedy lowlifes. So, what the hell does a 10 year old kid do with those two thought processes? Regardless, I found out lawyers go to 4 more years of school and I threw that idea out instantly. I also found out you had to study a lot and work in an office everyday. Offices had no moving parts, machinery, or noise. It sounded very boring. Still, this is a good example of the boxes we create for our kids. My Dad and Mom were both trying to create a box, instead of asking me what I wanted to do and defining what I should or shouldn't do with my life. They didn't mean to of course, at the time they could have just been trying to get me to at least think about the future. So, this begs the question, what the hell is the teacher doing asking me for the Hopes and Dreams of my children. Ask my child. Ask them what they want to do, and let's support them in their hopes and dreams rather than ask the parents. If the kid says I want to design toys, don't laugh at the idea, find out what it takes to design toys. Someone out there is designing toys. Why not that child, if it is their dream?
In the end a writing assignment is a writing assignment. Since I am required to write the letter it will be penned as such(please cue theme song for Breakfast Club): I accept the fact that I have to sacrifice a portion of my last Summer Saturday to write this letter. But I think you're crazy to make me write a letter telling you what I we think my child's hopes and dreams are. My hope and dream is they work towards following their own hopes and dreams and explore the world as fully as they can in that endeavor. That they will disregard anyone who stands in the pursuit of their hopes and dreams,including their friends, family and educators. In the end, you see each of these children as you want to see them—in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But you will find out is that each one of them is a brain...and an athlete...and a basket case...a princess...and a criminal. Does that answer your question?
Sincerely
The Man in the Box.
(I'm counting on it that a teacher never asks me to write another thing)


 (It's Gaaaammmmmmmedayyyyyy! I'm out of here. Go Jacks!)