Advent Calendar: parenting

Advent Calendar:

Dec 7
I never realized it until I became one that a lot of parental teaching moments are done clandestinely and sometimes even without our even meaning to do them. You'll ask your kids what something means or ask them to look something up even though you know the answer, maybe let them make a mistake so that they can figure something out or whatever. If you had asked me who I was most like when I was a kid it would have been my real dad. That's because anyone who saw me would say I was his spitting image. I was dark like he was and my mom had the fair Mendez look. But it's only recently that I've come to see how much I look like my mom, especially around the eyes and how much of her and my step-father's ways I've subsumed. All those years of watching my mom toil away at constructing dresses and making things translated into my love of the arts. From the old man, I got his love of gadgets and his meticulous ways. From both of them a sense of moral indignation if I am right or something stands to me corrected. And, I guess that is our greatest legacy - the things we give to our kids and that our parents left with us - that we are set out on our paths and with a little guidance, sometimes from beyond, they guide our way.