Learning To Let Go (At Least A Little) ~ Oct 27, 2002

We all know it has to happen. One day they are these cute little bundles of love running down the hall to grab "Daddy" when he comes home from work. It seems you just turn around and you have to start sharing them with a school. Today, my oldest daughter, (She is still my little girl) got her first job.

I know it happens to all of us, sooner or later, time has a habit of sneaking up on us. Our little girls insist on growing up, in spite of all our objections. They start getting jobs, noticing boys and start asking for a car.

How we handle these first tentative steps towards Adulthood, will in part (a small part I admit), help to determine what kind of people they become. We can encourage their first cautious moves into the unforgiving world of Adulthood. We can encourage their decision to become taxpaying supporters of the American way or we can stifle their desires, out of our need for them to remain our little girls. We can help them to become the type of adults we want them to be, or we can "Baby" them and in so doing foster a permanent dependency on us.

I know it's not easy, believe me, I know it isn't easy, but we have to start loosening the ties of childhood. The only way our children will ever become the adults we need for them to be, the adults that we know that they can become, The adults that we have spent years teaching them to be, is for us to allow them to grow up. So put on that big smile, tell them you are proud of them and watch them head off towards Adulthood. (Then go in the house and cry.)

God Bless America
Bill Hocutt