ME Week—Wednesday

A friend in Richmond once told me, “We don’t raise children; we raise adults. They are just children for a little while.”

This picture is of the first day of school for Mary Elizabeth (our oldest daughter; red bow in the picture). I remember how beautiful she looked in her cute dress, white sweater and red bow and how huge the backpack looked on her tiny frame. I recall saying, “Y’all walk on ahead for a minute,” so that I could pause and capture this moment. I think back to snapping the shutter for this photo like it was yesterday, but it wasn’t. I remember the feeling of putting my little girl on a school bus at the end of our street and thinking, “This is a game changer.”

It was a paradigm shift because I had to release control as a dad. When the kids are little and around the house most of the day, parents have a bigger voice in their lives. Putting Mary Liz on the school bus meant that I didn’t get to determine who would speak to her, what they might say, how they might treat her, and how she might feel at the end of the day. This reality came crashing down that afternoon when—after my wife waited forever for the school bus—we found out that the afternoon drop off was different from the morning drop off. Per protocol, our daughter had been taken back to school and had been waiting for 45 minutes in the office—and the rest of that story is another blog for another day.

In about six weeks, Emma and I will drive behind our daughter as we go waaay past the end of our street and drop her off again for her first days in college. I’ll probably have the two of them walk ahead so I can take another picture like the one above. At some point, though, there won’t be a bus. We will say goodbyes and trust God, friends, and faculty to watch over her new chapter in life. I’ll have to let someone else do the orientation. 

It’s tough stuff for dads and moms, but. . . we don’t raise children; we raise adults who used to be children for a little while. 

I am reminded of the oft-quoted verse Proverbs 22:6, “Point your kids in the right direction—when they’re old they won’t be lost.” (The Message translation).

I am so proud of the young lady that Mary Liz is becoming. As a dad, my prayer is that she knows and feels like she is heading in the right direction. My promise is that when she feels a little lost—like all of us do sometimes—I will continue to walk alongside her and point the way to the One who loves her every step of the way.