So here it is. This is my first official shot at blogging. I’ve always wanted to do it but wanting and doing with me are COMPLETELY different things. I recently had a good friend tell me that I’m not as different as I think I am though, so maybe it’s that way with everyone?

I have a tendency with anything I write to divulge too much all at once, as if I feel the need to give my reader a history of myself and why I’m here. I figure it best this time around to simply cut to the juicy stuff and maybe all of that past mumbo jumbo will unfold on it’s own.                     I wouldn’t want to bore you to tears before even getting started now would I?

Tonight’s topic? Walls. Or hey….maybe fences, or really any kind of barrier that might keep someone within it’s boundaries. Our lives are filled with them. For those of you who know me, you are aware that this year I entered the realm of motherhood for the very first time.                   Since I gave birth I’ve been playing the role of stay-at-home-mom, which is all new to me….in a good way of course. =)

Recently I was watching our little viking (Aidan) as he rolled around on the floor,  noticing how over his first 8 months his movement around the room continues to expand and grow. Clay and I being concerned parents who can’t STAND the carpet in our apartment and prefer he keep his face out of it, have to put up walls for him. We don’t have any fancy shmancy baby gates or any of that yet. We stack up pillows and place boxes of diapers and large objects around the perimeter of our pre-determined, blanketed play zones for him. Most of the time lately, it doesn’t matter where I place him, he immediately hauls butt towards the edges of the perimeter, then proceeds to get VERY angry that he can’t continue on. This got me thinking. This may be the first time in his life he’s figuring out that boundaries aren’t fun, but it certainly won’t be the last…

This poor kid will be walled in at school, gated in at the playground, insisted upon for hall passes and such to use the bathroom. He may even feel trapped in unfortunate relationships or jobs if he’s anything like his parents. The world will continue to throw rules and regulations at him, make him jump through hoops in order to travel, and throw up wall after wall in order to “protect” him. But what are we protecting him from?

What are THEY protecting US from? Are we being protected from ourselves? Right now in his life, he depends on us for this, we all needed it when we were babies. We all depended on someone to protect us from falling off the bed or running into a wall or collapsing against the edge of a table. That’s where it starts, and of course that IS indeed necessary. But where does it end? Will it be his own parents who in the end are held responsible for destroying that adventurous spirit? After all, I’m pretty sure I was once adventurous. What happened to me? Common sense?

Or is it all just common nonsense?

Someday this kiddo will be on his own. I want to trust that he can use that amazing brain of his in a positive way when he encounters the dangers of the world. I want to know that he can handle it. More importantly, I want to know that he can tear down the walls that the world throws up around him, to have a million adventures, and to prove that he doesn’t need protection from himself at all.

To prove them all wrong.

 

Thank you.