This morning while driving the Darling Munchkin to school, I had my iPod playing, and an old song by Styx, from their Grand Illusion album, started playing... and I was taken back to when I wasn't much older than ten (I was 14), and Styx was one of my favorite groups!
I remember having the radio on all the time. I remember stacking six albums on my record player, and turning it on low as I went to sleep. I remember going to the record store and flipping through album after album, looking for Manfred Mann's the Roaring Silence so I could have "Blinded by the Light" in my collection.
I remember not worrying about seatbelts. I remember going trick-or-treating in my neighborhood and not even needing to worry about being kidnapped. I remember riding my bike to and from the club pool, and sneaking in after dark (after I had my license) to go skinny-dipping. I remember walking from my school to the Avenue (after school - I was a good girl, LOL), and being picked up by one of my teachers and given a lift.
I remember paying $1.95 for a nice, thick paperback novel. I remember Daddy bringing home a calculator that added, subtracted, divided and multiplied, and had one memory... And was the size of a typewriter. Hey, I remember typewriters!
As I talked to the Munchkin about all this, I realized all the things she's growing up with that I had no clue were coming: computers, the Internet, cable TV, stalkers, terrorism...
And I told her that I now understood (yeah, just NOW) how much my parents worried about me as I was growing up - their childhoods were very different from mine, too. Just as I look back on all the freedoms I had that I don't dare give to the Munchkin today, they must have looked at all the changes that happened in their lifetimes and been deeply concerned about my welfare.
The Munchkin's fenced areas are now both narrower and broader than my restrictions were. The Beloved Husband and I want our child to grow up secure but aware, confident but careful, and loved but disciplined. Today, I got smacked in the face (again) with how hard that is.
Don't worry, Mom and Dad. We'll take care of your favorite (only!) granddaughter. We'll watch over her, love her, guide and teach her to the best of our ability. God willing, in twenty or thirty years, she'll be talking to her own children and remember our conversation this morning... And will have the same fierce, protective desire to love, cherish and guide her children into the future as her parents did before her.
(Crossposted to Third World County)
