This Reminds Me

Keith and Lois are all hyped about the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Friday. They’ll be among the thousands haunting bookstores at midnight, anxious to purchase the 784-page final installment. Keith – echoing a personal philosophy with character enthusiasm – has changed the status line on his AT&T instant messenger to his favorite line from the series, It’s our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are – far more than our abilities. – Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

We’ve been talking about choices with Julia lately, as she’s been asking questions about her future. What she might be when she grows up. Might she go to college? Ride a motorcycle?  Visit Russia?  Have a dog? Marry? Have children?

Most homegrown kids in families like ours learn about choices and consequences from observation as well as experience. They see the neighbor kids packing up for college. They’re dragged to baptisms, weddings and funerals at church. They notice the extended bedtimes and broader privileges of older siblings. They know who gets first grade bibles, who goes to camp, who gets to drive, who gets to date, who gets to have Coke with meals. They understand the generational context of families. They know weekends, and school years, and precious parental vacation days. They know not only their place, but also the places of those younger, older and adjacent.

That knowledge is never overtly taught – it is covertly absorbed, like a familial osmosis.

A child institutionalized with kids all the same age and floating caregivers, however, shares none of those insights. There’s no path blazed before them. No touchpoints. No validations. No reassurances, or gentle corrections, or gleeful anticipations. So choices – and the future they influence – can be scary.

Julia has said she wants to stay a kid and live with Keith and me forever, preferably sleeping on an air mattress next to our bed. She wants Rachel and Lois at home, too….Hannah is still kind of up-in-the-air…..

Julia and Keith tonight – this is her favorite TV watching vantage point…

Naturally, Keith and I are happy she is attaching so well. It’s what we’ve worked toward – longed for – prayed for – all this time. But with these ropes of attachment dangle the strings of teaching her to how to let go – specifically, how to make good choices so when she leaves our home, she’s prepared to make a new one. And those good choices require a tremendous amount of absorbed knowledge.

Several times at the end of long, exasperating conversations heavily peppered with Julia’s “Why” questions, I’ve longed to pour a magic elixir down her throat that would impart seven years’ worth of absorbed knowledge. Stuff like:  The trash men come because we pay them.  Red/green/yellow lights keep us safe. The pool is closed on Tuesday so the swim team can practice. Jeans take a long time in the dryer. Heaven is not a place I can show you on the map.  I used to have a mother and a brother, and Aunt Judy has always been my sister.  Gas makes the car run.  We bathe every day, and only girls can see other girls in the bathroom.  We used to live in Houston, and that is why people hug us when we are there.

But that magic elixir exists only in a place like Hogwarts.

We muggles have to impart knowledge and encourage good choices without the benefit of elixirs, wands, spells or potions.

So tonight I remember one of my favorite Goblet of Fire quotes, also by Albus Dumbledore – You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.

Thanks, Professor.

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