Are we doing enough for our children?
KAMLOOPS — The Rose Garden at Riverside Park was all sparkle and glamour on Saturday. Some of this year’s graduates, their families and friends were gathered for pictures and later, the grand march. The buzz was palpable. Big smiles, laughter, dresses and coats adjusted, nothing was left to chance. I was invited to be part of it by close friends whose daughter graduated. I took photos of their family, of their daughter, then we sat in the shade and chatted until the grand march was to begin.
The conversation drifted from the glamorous moment to the journey that only parents can talk about. The hiccups. The worries. The ‘holding-your-breath’ moments, and of course, the joy. The love that withstands anything and carries us parents over the hurdles and through the hoops; the hope.
As the graduates and their opposite-sex parent marched along the paths lined with families, friends, and anyone else mesmerized by the ceremony, a thought nagged at me, again. It’d be fair to say that it’s been growing alongside my boys, who are not yet of graduation age, but slowly approaching. The thought: are we doing enough? As parents, as a society, as educators and all the other roles adults play in children’s lives.
In asking that I am not simply setting myself up to be blasted with questions like: ‘are you serious?’, ‘do they need more than the excess they’re already getting which makes them entitled?’ or statements such as ‘if anything, we are doing too much and they do not know what resilience means, and what being an adult means.’ You get the gist.