The Nelson Family Indonesia

To be a parent is to worry. To wonder. It is a broad avenue to constant uncertainty and self-doubt. In a culture of experts bombarding us every moment through television and radio and the Internet with new or time-tested techniques and products for successful parenting, it isn’t humanly possibly to engage all of them, even if one were so inclined to try (which Gena and I are not). Even casual conversations with other parents are a minefield of uncertainty. I’m not doing what they’re doing. Maybe I should be. Maybe I’m completely screwing my kids up.

The self-doubt only intensifies as your kids grow up. As they start to become more independent and autonomous. It’s here those fatal parenting mistakes will manifest themselves with a brutal vengeance, not just on the parents but on the kids as well. It’s here where an inability to instill self-confidence, self-identity, an ethos, the ability to say no will result in disaster of varying magnitudes.

Gena and I are not prone to excessive self-doubt but we are not immune to it either. And as we’ve raised our kids we’ve done so in the express knowledge that we aren’t going about it in the typical ways. Choices have been made. Paths chosen and rejected. Opportunities seized and spurned. Our goals for our kids are articulated differently than we hear other parents talk about them. And of course as easily as that might lead to a judgemental attitude towards others, it can also lead to self-condemnation and despair.

But along the way you get glimpses and insights into your kids and the people they are and are becoming. Moments where you can see what they’ve absorbed from you and the experiences you have shared as a family. How you’ve endured difficulties and hardships. How you’ve navigated success. Those moments are hopefully opportunities to breathe a sigh or relief, or perhaps to initiate radical changes.

Moving overseas elevated our kids’ level of autonomy and independence radically. At ages 19, 17 and 15 their independence in the US was limited by the high cost of merely existing. They were just starting to work as we moved overseas, so things like drivers licenses and other rituals of adulthood were delayed. But they found greater independence in Southeast Asia because of the lower cost of living. They could go places and do things because transportation and food and literally everything where we live is a fraction of what it is in the US. And it was wonderful to watch them blossom in that independence and autonomy.

Then came the even bigger transition – when they returned to the States without us. When they continued the process of independence and maturation. Getting jobs and being fully and completely responsible for getting themselves to and from work each day and on time. Paying rent. Navigating the opportunities and challenges of extended family, something they’ve never had around them on a constant basis before.

We missed the moments when our youngest two got their drivers licenses late last year. They alone were responsible for studying, for negotiating help from aunts and uncles and grandparents to allow them to use their vehicles to practice. They both spurned the route of paying for professional instruction and opted to learn the slower way (I have **NO** idea where that streak of stubborn independence might have come from! Ahem.). And they each successfully passed their driving exams. We never doubted their ability to do so but I’ll admit it was slightly sad we couldn’t be with them in the process. Couldn’t be there to take them to the DMV and sit and wait anxiously for the verdict after their driving ride-alongs.

But earlier today I experienced one of my proudest moments as a parent. One of those moments when I recognize that our kids have – whether through our parenting or through the grace of God (and frankly both and more of the latter than the former) – what it takes to survive in the world. Gena’s parents often chuckle that our kids’ mantra is We’ll figure it out. No matter what the challenge. No matter what the issue. Our kids’ mutual response is that they’ll figure out how to do it. How to accomplish it. How to avoid it. How to handle it. A slight spin on daffy Dory’s mantra of Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming in Finding Nemo. And I’ll cop to some parental prejudice – I like our kids’ mantra better.

Earlier today our family took two taxis from our hotel to the Taoyuan International Airport. There, our kids would depart for the US and Gena and I would depart for Vietnam. We’d say our family good byes in the hustle and bustle of an airport, which in many ways is fitting for our past four years. Moreover, our flight would depart before our kids’ flight would, and our flights were in different terminals of the airport. We initially thought we’d get the kids checked in first and then go together for us to check in and then say goodbye. But we realized this was unnecessarily complicated, and besides, the check-in counter for the kids wasn’t going to open until we had to check in and prepare to board.

Now, our kids managed to get themselves from Phoenix all the way to Singapore, navigating changes of plane and airline in San Francisco. We had no doubt the kids could handle it, could figure things out on the reverse end. But there was something beautiful as we said goodbye – with a few tears perhaps – and made our way through the labyrinth and inter-terminal train to our own terminal and left the kids to check themselves and their bags and get their tickets and find their gate and depart for their lives that more and more consisted of people other than their mother and father on a daily basis.

I am fiercely proud of my kids. Proud of my wife. Proud of what God has enabled our family to do and become. I don’t take credit for any of it and am happy to take blame for whatever rough edges and tarnishes have been picked up and conveyed along the way. But today I felt the surge of joy and hope and confidence in my children as we navigated away from each other to different continents on different sides of the world. I’m in no hurry to die. But I know that when that moment comes, whether by surprise or at the end of a long and very well-marked road, the kids are all right. Truly by the grace of God, the kids are all right.