Did this post August 1, 2005, when I was in Ken Grandlund‘s county, San Diego. Ken’s the first blogger running for Congress that I know. Actually Ken was one of the first bloggers that I knew. Even if you don’t live in San Diego, you can help. Ken’s a good person, very intelligent and thinks for himself. It’s really exciting that this community we’re spawning has spawned a Congressional candidate
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Visit my renter. He’s much nicer than I am, and should probably be charging me.
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Sar‘s guest this week is EW on the telecommunication industry–an industry I cut my professional teeth working in.
More personally, I have never been a patient person. When I began the dental implant procedure, they said that I would learn patience. I did. But now with only two and a half to four weeks to go, I have run of out patience.
If I bitch into my blog, that could be perceived as being whiny. If I keep putting posts in like this, I can be perceived as negative and bitter.
I don’t think this is either a negative or bitter post.
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I do believe that our greatest legacy is what we accomplish on this earth. We, as in the individual. As Cooper, the daughter I would have wished for said, it does put an unfair burden on the child to consider them a “legacy.” That’s a hospital wing or something.
To truly over simplify, people aren’t objects. Children don’t belong to their parents. To tell a child “you are my legacy,” is one of the cruelest things that a parent could do to a child. To tell a child, I will live on through your memories is something I personally wouldn’t do to a minor child unless I were dying and my child knew and understood that, but it implies that you are leaving your child a treasure of wonderful memories, I hope, and neither expect nor want your child to become president.
I do feel strongly about this as I do hope to leave this earth one day having made it a bit better for my being here. And I don’t have kids. We live in a regressing society. I do feel implored to bring up views that aren’t mainstream, because when times are tough, the weak hide behind “family values.”
Every morning this week I have jumped out of bed to see if Karl Rove had been indicted yet. President Bush had promised to sideline any person who is under investigation, let’s never forget that. He didn’t. Doesn’t matter if Rove is innocent or guilty; it matters that Bush went against his own word. People forget that. To go against your own promise is something that I can’t forgive nor would want to.
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There’s a lesson for the high school graduates of today. When all is said and done, the most important part of your legacy will be the kind of kids you raised. It’s the only thing that will matter to you – or to anyone else.
This was in an op-ed piece in the San Diego Union-Tribune by Rueben Navarrette, Jr. I sent him an email thanking him for confirming my worst fear. Childless, so what will my legacy be? Obviously I’m a zilch to him.
I’m sorry but I just looked at the quote in print, and it is so stupid I can’t believe that I felt the need to answer it. But since he’s a columnist in the largest paper in California’s second largest city obviously people read him. I hope that he understands how unfeeling and sick that looks. Now I will go on…
The thing is that you never know how your children will turn out. When I was growing up our neighbors had three children; two were leaders in school and became very successful; the third is a career criminal. Our neighbors had to move in the middle of the night and not leave a return address as David would pick the locks and rob them of everything. Three children raised in the same house by the same parents with the same amount of attention and love. Is there legacy going to be the two great kids or the one bad one?
What happens if you have a disabled child, or a child that’s injured in an accident? Oh but that’s not what he meant. Of course those parents will have a wonderful legacy; they had such a difficult time raising those children. But he didn’t say that.
Mr. Navaratte was talking about his 20th high school reunion. He said that when he went to his tenth people were still establishing themselves, and from the article didn’t seem to be parents yet. That sweet faced adorable ten year old girl, who seems so happy and filled with potential. Then her hormones kick in, and despite the best parenting in the world, she turns to heroin. Won’t happen, you say. Can’t happen to a child raised in a great home with loving parents who know how to establish boundaries, limitations, and are religious. Sure does happen. Even (gasp, shock) among home schooled kids.
I am so tired of the smug superiority of parents who know everything. When I was with Zachary I made a conscious decision not to have children. Neither he nor I were ready to be parents. He wanted children; they would help save him from further despair and hurt. I might have been young but I wasn’t a fool.
Later I had other opportunities to become a parent. Thank god for birth control. I knew that I had a tendency to pick unstable though beautiful and bright men. Despite what my therapist de jour said, I didn’t think that it reflected well on my maturity. My next fiancee took me to where his father had killed himself. We had to cross a creek and a hill to get to the exact spot. He hadn’t told me where we going or why. I just stood there open mouthed and speechless. Though I had suspected that this relationship wasn’t going to last, I knew at that moment that it was over.
My best friend’s marriage to the father of her child was over by the time Little Luce was three. I can’t and won’t imagine the world without Little Luce, but I know how hard life has been for Lucia. She has struggled so that Little Luce could live the life of a privileged city child. I’m not talking private schools, and sleep away camp, expensive clothes and vacations. Tutoring, braces, even going to museums and the movies–it all adds up. Lucia has given up much of her social life, vacations, and many other things so Little Luce can have.
I never wanted to be a single parent. Call me selfish, but I always knew how hard it would be. I never needed a child to define me or to make me feel complete. When I was an SSI Claims Rep, I kept a picture of Little Luce on my desk and claimed her as mine so I wouldn’t have to listen to claimants tell me how incomplete my life was without children. Yes, I could have answered them rather rudely, but I didn’t want to. Yes I could have declared the subject off limits, but I worked in a bad neighborhood in the Bronx during drive-by-shooting days. The only thing that the women had was their children and I wasn’t going to take their pride away anymore than it had been or was taken away by different agencies.
I might be selfish but I’m not unstable. I don’t think that having a child would have made more mature, more selfless, more wonderful, more productive, or happier. I’m not denying the joy a child might have added. As an adoptee, I know giving birth isn’t the mark of a mother; I know that fathers add immeasurably to a family.
But our legacies will be based on our accomplishments; our compassion; what we did to to help make the world or a little corner of it better. Our legacies are based on our total lives, and how our kids ended up, well, many times they became brain surgeons despite our awful parenting, or career criminals despite our great parenting.
Parents who believe that their legacies are based on how their children turn out are putting a large burden on their children for one and seriously need to get a life. Your legacy has to do with you and you alone.
Ask any child, in secret or when they are drunk if need be, and they will tell you so.
Legacy literally means what you leave….the key word here is you…not your spawn.
But as they say ” if ya got nothin ya got nothin…..hence the ” I did nothing but look at how well my children turned out ” call.
meh
It seems to me that some of us are missing the meaning or at least another interpretation on children.Now,I never had any of my own so,I am not expounding on the virtues of having them.I would like to share with you however,what I was told and taught.It wasn’t that your children were your legacy but that you lived on through your children.I don’t know if this was a N.Y. jewish thing or a universal jewish thing or,if others were taught the same.My father believed in that and he was and is my best example of what a man should aspire to be.I do know that is what I think about when I ponder my mortality.Some of us believe in heaven and hell,some reincarnation,some absolutely nothing.That’s fine with me but sometimes I admit I just don’t know.I suppose no one else does either.I look for the everyday miracles that surround me and choose not to focus on the rest.Remember,matter can be transformed,altered but never destroyed.So,that leaves me with the soul which I choose to believe is my only real chance at immortality.
Peter
He said that your legacy is based on “the kind of kid” you raised.
That statement then assigns them attributes.
“Living on through your children” doesn’t make that assumption. It does assume that you will live on through your child’s memories and soul
He also said that the only thing people wanted to talk about at his high school reunion was their children. That’s nice, but what does it feel like for the 38 year old childless couple who do desperately want? Or the people who haven’t had yet–some will, some won’t.
It doesn’t mean that their legacy is any less important. One of those people might help find a cure for cancer or do something equally remarkable.
Or just be a really great person who lives on the hearts of people she/he has touched.
Some of the most loving, funny, caring accomplished individuals I know – two aunts readily come to mind and some friends have decided, or have not been able to have children. These are people who love my children and are very happy to be part of their lives. But, to subject them to conversations solely based around my children just shows my lack of depth as a human. Believe me, I know one such individual and those of us with children don’t relish speaking to her.
“The kind of kid you raise” is like nails on a blackboard to me. I do believe strongly in giving your children a variety of life experiences and supporting them in their path in every absolute way possible, but just as they came with no instruction manual, they come with no guarantees. The best laid plans…
You are your own legacy.
A lot are from an in between generation where are parents were not quite there yet. There is an over abundance of parents out there who are making their children their life without realizing they need a life of their own and they can’t claim their children’s life as their own.
My son is almost three and I can say that having him has been a pleasure and he has filled me with a lot of love, love I never thought I would feel.
But, as my wife says, we have him for but a short time and everyday is another step toward his aloneness because one day he will be gone and we will be back to what we were. We must keep what we are and continue to develop ourselves despite of our child while at the same time loving our child, because he is not us he is him; we have to maintain our own life and our own legacy otherwise we have no life.
Some people do need to get a life.
Children are not property.
‘Nuf said.
My legacy is becoming a mother to a beautiful son… his legacy is to become whatever he wishes… I want whatever he wants… and if that means being a trash man… then that is beautiful…
And that’s just one of the reasons I love Shayna.
Sometimes I think we all get caught up in a little too much verbiage.Your legacy is what you leave behind not who you leave behind.I mean that is pretty clear isn’t it?Were you a good person,did you do anything that mattered?Did you touch anyone’s life in a positive way?Were you honest and stood up for what you believed?Did you give it your best shot?I would like to think that will be my legacy and it doesn’t matter whether anyone knows.What matters is that when my time comes,I know.If there is something after I must admit that I hope God knows too.Albert Brooks is one of my favorite guys.The movie “defending your life” wasn’t that great but the idea was.I hope it’s a little like that.
Peter
I kinda like that idea too Peter – I also believe just being plain good to people – our children, stockers at the supermarket, whomever defines who we are in some karmic (not comic) way most.
Pia, again you don’t disappoint.
I work in an environment where I see what I call trophy kids – kids treated like objects their whole lives who really can’t face the real world, because they haven’t been allowed the chance to actually be something more than Mom and Dad’s experiment in perfect parenting.
Kids shouldn’t be treated like legacies; it just robs them of their own chance to be creative, independent, and liberated thinkers.
Thank You Ginah,
There is a saying”empty cans make the most noise”.My dad taught me that.It means if you do something well,do something kind,make some difference,achieve something special,people know,you needn’t tell them.There is a dignity about that.I am most fascinated by quiet,annonymous people who do wonderful,amazing things.I actually know some.I’m a lucky guy.
Peter
Thank you all.
Peter you’re so right about quiet annonymous people who do wonderful amazing things.
My dad wasn’t quiet but we would go to his clients offices–he was a CPA–and the “lowest” person in the office would invariably stop me to tell me what he had taught them. Would give when people were desperate but was really into teaching–teach a person to fish…though he would have never reduced it to such a simplistic term
My mom’s funeral–so many people came who we had no idea she knew–again she touched their lives in different ways.
I try to live up to their example and it’s not easy. Though I see how this post has taken a life of its own and influenced others. Feel so humbled.
All I’m trying to say is give peace…no, every person on the planet has something to offer, and nobody’s accomplishments should be minimized
And to live reflected through your child is really not to live.
My true legacy from my parents was to care and to act.
Once again thank everybody. Gina, Peter, it’s nice to add you.
I always wondered why occasionally my Dad would say he was proud of me. I’m not famous, wealthy, don’t have an amazing career or anything.
I always thought he was just saying that.
But I think I realized those aren’t the important things. And that he really was proud.
Thanks Pia,
It’s fun visiting with you.Nice people seem to drop by.Good Bone,keep that thought,it’s a good one and something to be proud of.Some people never get to hear that.Amazing what a few kind words can do.Your dad sounds like a good man.
Later
Peter
Wow! Pia in the comments! I do love this!
Parents who latch on to their kids under the guise of such bullshit as “legacy” just pass on a world of hurt… I should know.
I cannot even fathom being a single parent. We are two and it is hard enough as is… no, you are not selfish for not wanting to have been a single parent… hell, were you happily married you wouldn’t be selfish for not wanting kids period! It’s your body and we, as women, were not put here on this earth to pop forth babies.
Legacy… all about you.
Peter, Bone, Pia ~ it sounds like all learned from some good people. And MizBoheMia, I couldn’t agree more! Anyway, I’ll be quick – I need to go get into a peaceful frame of mind which reading above actually helped. To all a Shabbat Shalom – loosely translated A Peaceful Sabbath, but really Peace to all! I don’t mean it in a purely religious context. This is the one part of Jewish celebration that we do on a “regular basis” – Friday night Shabbat. I guess that’s a topic for another day for when I start my own blog, but the whole idea of centering yourself in this crazy world with a little peace appeals to us. Thanks Pia – have a good weekend to all1