Families

Families are amazing institutions... because in them we learn to love people who are very different from ourselves!

If we could choose our own parents - how many of us would (at first glance) have chosen our own?! Other people's parents often look decidedly better!

I remember one of my sons (who felt he must have been adopted, he was so different from the rest of us...) constantly lamenting that he wished he had been adopted by Bill Gates. In the Bill Gates mansion, he could have as many computers as he wanted - and they would always be the latest version - unlike in our family where he had to share, and computers were never the latest model...

He wasn't the only one... My daughter - in junior high school - avoided Terry and me on parents' night when parents were invited to meet the teachers and visit the classrooms. I was a bit sad - but I couldn't blame her. I have vivid memories of myself as a teenager - hating to walk down the street with my mother and father. I also have a vivid memory of the shining day when I had come home from university - and I found myself walking down Kelowna's main street with my parents - and it didn't feel bad!

Wow! I've grown up! I remember thinking...

But the "perfect family" fantasy doesn't end with the children... As a parent I have often wished my child were more like... ME?!

(Then - at least - I could always understand them!)