One of the questions that has most been with me the past two years is this: If I had a son or daughter, would I have anything to really teach them? Would I have gathered from my years on earth some kind of life-wisdom to pass on to them? Or would all my knowledge be merely technical information – this is how you tie a tie, this is how you balance a checkbook, these are the prayers you say at Mass – information that anyone else could provide, or they could find out on their own?
I think this anxiety is not far from many parents’ minds. I think it is behind Susan Wise Bauer’s musings here on incompetent or absent (physically or spiritually) parents. I’m not sure she quite sees it the way I am describing it herself – her focus is on merely being present for her children in a deeper way – but I think this is the ultimate anxiety, knowing that we must have some deeper obligation to our children than merely “keeping them fed and safe” or training them for success; but having received so little wisdom from others, what confidence can we have in our own, or in finding a form for passing it on?
Ms. Bauer is an intriguing writer, of the “let’s return to farming and teaching, religion and Classics” type; she has been working on a history of the world for home-school use.
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