Being a Boot

When my children were young, I tried to create a shell of love and safety around them, because they were fragile. I wanted to protect them. That was my job.

They grew and developed in the shell I built around them, but one by one the time came when they out grew the shell and started to peck their way out. They had to do that.
That was their job.

Everyone knows that if you prevent a chick from hatching out, you end up killing the chick. And you can't help them crack the shell either. If you do it before it's time, the chick is exposed to the world outside before it's ready and dies. They say that you shouldn't even help the chick when it's time. The very process of hatching is important to the chick.

Some parents make the mistake of trying to keep their kids in a shell to long and smother them. Others think that being a chicken is so great that they crack the shell before its time. But the most common mistake we parents make is when our chicks are breaking out. We try to help them and forget that cracking the shell is an experience that is painful, but very important. Out of the best of intentions, we rob them of one of the most valuable experiences in life.

I recall a story; I think it was about Byron, my sister-in-law's dad and my mentor that taught me everthing I've ever learned worth remembering about being a farmer. I think it was Byron, but I can't swear to it. The farmer shucked his boots by the door every day when the day was done. His kids found an egg that was about to hatch and put it by their dad's boots. When it hatched, it was a duck.

Apparently ducks think that the first thing they see when they bust out of their egg is their mother, and so this duck using duck logic decided that the farmers boots were his mother (mothers?). For the longest time, whenever the farmer put on his boots and crossed the yard or went to work, the duck would run after him. Every duck knows that well behaved ducks follow their mother.

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."Mama?"

When our kids are hatching out, they are looking around them and will end up following what ever they see; what they see first, what they see the most. I don't think our kids need us to help them hatch out. That's something natural and even if painful, it's good for them. Perhaps the best thing to do is just to be there for them, and to be the kind of people that we want them to be and to hope they will follow.

When our kids are hatching out, maybe it's our job to just be a good boot.