A generational truth — children are unpredictable
My father told me hundreds of times that I could pay for my raising by raising children of my own. I thought I was bright, and I thought I knew what he meant, but his words didn’t completely sink in until years later. When I was a little taller than a banana, my imagination was untamed and I figured that I could do anything.
Dad owned a new Oldsmobile, and he kept it waxed and shined like it was covered in gold. I can’t tell you why, but one day I walked out of the house, opened the unlocked driver’s door of his Oldsmobile and jumped behind the steering wheel. Without taking the time to be cautious or concerned, I yanked the gear leaver into neutral. I had a deer in the headlights moment when the car started to pick up speed as it rolled backwards. There was a four-foot deep ditch on one side of our dirt drive that I figured would stop the car from rolling.
It was a lucky guess that I correctly turned the steering wheel and aimed the car toward the ditch. The consequences, however, weren’t so lucky. Just as planned, the car came to a sudden stop when it hit the ditch. What I hadn’t planned was dad hearing the crash and come running as fast as a heavy man could run. No words were spoken, but it didn’t take a mastermind to see that he was perturbed and disturbed. It wasn’t so bad I thought, he can just back the car out of the ditch. It wasn’t until I saw the wrecker in our drive that I fully felt the impact of what I had done. $300 worth of damage plus a wrecker bill in the 1950s was a big deal.
I was given the opportunity to pay for my raising over a quarter of a century later. My oldest daughter, at age 3, went with her mother to visit a next-door neighbor. She quietly slipped the car keys from her mother’s pocketbook and headed for the driveway. She inserted the key in our car door, unlocked the car, then put the key in the ignition. If she had been around in the 1950s, I would have said monkey see, monkey do, because she pulled the gearshift into neutral and the car started rolling backwards. I can’t tell you what went through her mind, but I can tell you that my 3-year-old rolled our car all the way across the street. Thankfully, the car didn’t hit our neighbor’s house. Unfortunately, it did hit a pillar of their carport and caused considerable damage.
Thankfully, no one was hurt in either incident. The moral to this story is that children can be unpredictable. They think, dream, see the world and make decisions differently from adults. They are little sponges who soak up much of what they see. They are born innocent, free of biases and free of prejudiced beliefs, but they learn from their environment. They learn language, social skills, and various attitudes by becoming a master imitator. Newborns copy facial movements, stick out their tongue and utter their first words by copying adults.
An adult should have an eye on each child most all the time because it only takes a second for the unexpected to happen It can be very monotonous to watch a child run 17 times around a park or complete 20 rotations on a merry-go-round. They aren’t young adults and raising children isn’t necessarily easy; it’s just the way life turns.
It isn’t terribly uncommon to see a child throw a temper tantrum. Before having children, many people said something like, “When I have children, I will jerk a knot in their tail if they ever act that way.” But good intentions don’t always go as planned.
Most future parents think that they’ll be different and their children will be perfect. But now as parents, many people realize that even the best-behaved children are unpredictable. They may be our future, and they may be delightful, but they act on impulse and can disappear or get hurt quicker than an eye can blink.
Charlie Sewell is a retired Powder Springs police chief who lives in Cherokee County. His book “I’d Rather You Call Me Charlie: Reminiscences Filled With Twists of Devilment, Devotion and A Little Danger” is available on Amazon. Email him at retiredchiefsewell@gmail.com.