Deciding for Ourselves

 

As we grow up, St. Patrick's Day morphs from "wear green or you'll get pinched" to "all-day drunken debauchery." It's an evolution that takes on greater import when you go from being the kid to raising the kid.

Living near a college campus, one can't avoid the festivities. Indeed, our neck of the woods is a popular destination for partying college students from all over the region, given the overabundance of bars and restaurants around us.

I recall Jada and Aaron being toddlers and our braving the campus-adjacent commercial corridors to grab a bite. We sat next to a group of young women decked out in green-themed suggestive wear. They seemed to be having fun, except for one who looked profoundly sad. I don't want to read too much into one glance at facial expression and body language, but it wasn't hard to imagine that she was the least enthused among her friends about the day ahead. It was like she knew the role she was supposed to play and dreaded having to play it.

Thankfully, peer pressure seems less intractable now than when I was a kid. We have a greater willingness to let people chart their own course and not have to fit in, whether it means taking a toke, swigging a brew, or otherwise engaging in dangerous behavior. Yet it hasn't fully gone away, necessitating that our youngsters exhibit some level of personal responsibility to decide what they are and aren't willing to do, and some level of courage to stand alone if their choices leave them on the outs.

With Jada going off to college, she will have almost complete latitude to do what she wants without our breathing down her back. And Aaron and eventually Asher are not far behind. What choices they make will be increasingly their own, without our guardrails or advice. I pray they'll be sure enough in themselves about what they want, and brave enough to stick to it and not go along.