Vectors #2

So my last post established that life has a vector possessing both magnitude and direction. A lot of people like to think of life like a path, but I like vectors better. A path suggests a destination, traveling toward a place where we'd like to end up. That's all well and good, but there is always more than one way to get to a destination. There are some horrible horrible people that are also wildly successful. While I want my kids to succeed, I don't want that. I'd like to watch their lives unfold and see not only success, but steady positive movement toward that success. I'd also like to be able to to what I can to direct things in a positive way. I want my parenting to help my kids be better in school. To be better as people. To be better in life.

I'm a parent, you're a parent, we're all parents. We all want our kids to be valedictorian and marry the love of their life and grow old in comfort and happiness, right? If we all have a common dream, why don't we have a common solution? Why can you walk into any book store and find 100 different books on child rearing? When your child brings home their homework tonight ask them how many different answers there are for each question. Does each question have one answer, or 100? There's the twist, each child doesn't really have the same question, not really, let alone the same answer. The simple explanation is that every child is unique, they have their own vector, they are their own question seeking a unique solution. That's both true and false, and it's why I generally hate parenting advice.
I was born a white male to educated parents during a time when being an educated white male made life a whole lot easier than the alternatives. Being born like I was when I was virtually guaranteed some level of success. I was hard to screw up no matter who's parenting advice you took. Two of my kids also fit that demographic, but two of them don't. Two of them are going to have to make choices in their lives that I never have than may profoundly affect their lives. When I talk about having babies I often say that "we" had kids. "We" didn't have kids, my wife did. Deciding to grow a baby for nine months and deliver it and recover from that delivery and then breastfeed for the better part of a year is something I never had to do. Neither will my sons, but my daughters will. Fifty years ago the choice to have kids profoundly affected the life of any woman. It still does, but having kids no longer forces you to give up work and stay home. Now it's a choice. I can't quite predict how the world will be for my sons and daughters when they're ready to make that decision. Then there's the fact that I'm kind of a meek quiet guy who's good at sitting still and learning by listening. You want to design someone who's good academically, it's a good place to start. Had I grown up in a different place or a different time it would have been a good way to get the crap kicked out of me. The attributes that make one successful aren't constant. They aren't constant through time, or place, or across cultures.
Where does that leave us as parents?
I'm not sure.
I think it leaves us evaluating our kids one by one. Parenting isn't something you know how to do, it's something you learn how to do. Ask any parent who has more than one child and they can explain it to you. No matter how much they thought they knew after one baby, there were a whole bunch of things they had to learn differently when the second one came along. Every child takes their first steps in their own time and in their own way. They need different levels of support and freedom when they get to school. The attention that one child needs to feel safe in the world might smother another.
This is not simple.
I think I have more to say about this. I might add on, and I might just start over. We'll see.