How will I know?

My cell phone rang with a personal phone call earlier this afternoon while I was at the office. Caller ID showed it to be my 11th grade daughter, Teen Girl, who normally communicates by text.

"Mom," she said with her matter-of-fact, I-got-a-question tone of voice.

"Yes," I said. I had deadlines, a pile of folders, a stack of papers, my desk was covered with commitments to meet before 5 p.m. "What do you need?" .

"Can I go to France for six weeks?" She asked.

"Sure," I said. I returned back to the deadlines.

Our biggest worry, Bob and me, is that we are not preparing our kids for, for . . . I don't know, for what? To pay their bills, I guess. To survive. To give. To appreciate. Maybe even to be happy. To live their passions. To think big. I'd take even just one of those things. What are we preparing them for?

It's hard to prepare them for anything when you don't have a model. Don't get me wrong, Bob and I both have amazing parents. But the thing is, things have changed so much. Just as, I'm sure, what our parents thought. Growing up for one generation seems so vastly different than growing up the generation before. I'm not one who believes in "the good old days" so don't worry, I'm not going there. They never existed. That's not my point.

But I don't remember growing up when there was so much parental fear. I don't remember my parents worrying about kidnappings and killings and capturing children for sexual trafficking. But maybe that's because I was the kid, and kids don't worry. Or more like it, I had a charmed childhood. Plus, I'm still not sure that, statistically speaking, these horrors really are worth worrying about. Compared with real statistical danger, such as, say, automobile accidents or being born a woman. Since I started grant writing, I'm all into statistics and it seems that these days, statistically speaking, there is a pretty good chance for our kids to get blown away by a semi-automatic military-style assault weapon (Kids are 13 times more likely to get snuffed out in U.S. than other industrialized countries. Source: Rekha Basu).

When Bob and I talk about this -- compare and contrast our kids' childhood with our own -- the conversation always starts with transportation. I grew up in small town Minnesota where you could walk or ride your bike everywhere. Bob grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where it was much the same -- you could walk or ride your bike or take a bus or train everywhere. Presently, our kids are somewhere in between. St. Paul and Des Moines are too big to walk, and too small for robust public transit (although Boy Child has done pretty good with the city bus).

To further muddle the transportation issue, never one to make things simple, I set up our lives so that we must drive our kids to school. Ever since day on of kindergarten in St. Paul, I've taken advantage of public school choice -- that newfangled notion that you can apply to get your kid into any school you want, instead of your neighborhood school. The stipulation is that you provide your own transport. In St. Paul I couldn't resist the Spanish immersion option. In Des Moines I went for the racial diversity option. (Where bleeding heart mother meets politically correct mother. I'm a one stop shop. You may feel sorry for Bob.) And I'm a one-woman gas guzzler because I have arranged it so that for the past 12 years we have driven to and from school twice daily. It's a sign of privilege, of course. We did it because we could.

Our kids have done in great in respective schools (if you don't count all their academic grades), but, have we coddled them too much? Do we give them too much money? Do we have too lax of household rules? Is the TV on too much? Are we too busy to notice things? Should we make them walk more? Should we put them in schools where bus service is provided? Should we make them go to church? (Thanks to the free donut holes and a community of loving people, this isn't much of an issue.) Should we let them slouch around? How do we teach gratitude? Will our kids know how to do their own laundry? (Actually, that's covered. Our house is laundry-anarchy, everyone for themselves.) What about personal finance? Sex? Ugh.

And I wonder if I'm making that classic parental mistake, pushing my kids into things that I wish I had done. Living vicariously through my kids. Expecting my kids to fulfill out my unresolved dreams.

I don't know. Most times, I'm too tired to really think all this through. I either just bring the kids along with me (if I can, it gets harder with teenagers but I  have been known to use fast food bribery for really important stuff such as the pride parade) and I give them constant little hugs with a dorkified, "Mommy loves you." Like five times a day. They could be standing, sitting, slouching, lounging, laying, sleeping -- and I'll pause for a, "Mommy loves you" shoulder crunch or fist bump. As if that will make up for all my mistakes.

Actually, I'm counting on it.

And now, excuse me while I move hell and high water to get my kid to France.

With love from yours truly,

Natural Born Bleeding Heart