To Jack

 Dear Jack:

I have a confession to make:  we sent you into the world unprepared.  

Those 19 years at home —

• We didn’t sign you up for competitive sports.  
• I cut your hair with Wahl clippers from Walmart. 
• We bought your clothes from Goodwill, Sams Club, or Atwoods.
• You were not continually surrounded by peers your own age.
• We didn’t judge your academic potential by good grades or high test scores.
• You only took the ACT once, without a prep course. 
• We didn’t encourage you to go to The College of Your Dreams. 

In short, you missed out on the quintessential experience of the modern American teenager.

But you should have seen it coming.  Case in point: your first piano recital.  You had just finished feeding the donkeys when we informed you of the need to grab your piano books.   At the tender age of seven, with only a few months of lessons under your belt, we arrived at the chapel which your teacher, Mrs. Parker, had reserved for the dignified occasion.  A dozen nervous piano students, all dressed tidily in their Sunday best, each clinging, sweaty-palmed, to their Alfred Piano lesson books, turned to look, wide-eyed, at the newest student … 

Jack, Woody, Dixie and Daisy

************

We had embarked on a wholly capricious experiment consisting of Dad and I thumbing our noses at modern child-rearing wisdom, which promoted organized playdates, prestigious educational programs, and (a real deal breaker) constant parental involvement.  I’d like to say our theory was based on research and deep soul searching, but mostly it was because we were the parents, that’s why.

For starters, we didn’t sign you up for team sports, 4-H, or Boy Scouts because 1) you didn’t seem to care much, which led directly to 2) Dad’s pronouncement that “You guys get to do ONE thing.”  Then, likely calculating all the hours wasted on four different extra-curricular activities, he added, “And it better be the SAME thing.”  Thus, though none of you kids enrolled in karate (much to the girls’ relief), neither did any of you try out for the Andover Dance Academy (much to everyone’s, probably most especially, the Academy’s, relief).

Dad may have felt vindicated in his pre-emptive curbing of your and Woody’s budding athletic ability by your first year of PE.  During this time we contemplated (from the questionable safety of the sidelines) the enthusiastic melee of pre-pubescent boys lobbing dodgeballs with a remarkable lack of prejudice at both fellow gym students and non-participating, often barely toddling, brothers and sisters in the bleachers.  “Well,” your dad philosophically observed, “it’s not like they’re going anywhere on [athletic] scholarship.”

We treated tests and music recitals with the same laissez-faire approach. They were inevitable, but the sun still would likely rise the day after, and if you studied hard, understood the material and did your best, what’s an A or a D between family?  You embraced this philosophy with such verve that once you started dual credit courses online during high school, you always studied for tests, but more than once, missed the cutoff time to take them.  At one point, Dad and I both remarked on how, although almost everyone has that nightmare where you suddenly realize it’s halfway through the semester and you’ve never once gone to class, you were actually very likely to live it.

Another aspect of your unorthodox upbringing may have been influenced by your mother, God bless her heart, who is cheap, and never saw any reason to buy you spendy clothes when designer duds and Levis look much the same after being dribbled with muriatic acid and then singed by leaning too close to the welding torch.  

As for the lack of time spent with your age group, you’ll have to forgive us for that.  You see, we wanted to spend the time with you. 

**********

So you may feel a little out of place now.

In college, as in life, you’ll find your worth will be judged based on your performance, your appearance, and how you comport yourself.  To some extent, it’s a useful system.  If something is worth achieving, you should work hard and adapt your behavior to achieve that goal.  There are (and should be) rewards for the pursuit of excellence — an idea we didn’t overly emphasize here.

Now you are entering a world of contradictions, where the freedom to develop your identity can be exhilarating, while the sheer loneliness as you start out, crushing.  You’ll neither be coddled by your family, nor hindered by its demands.  At times, tasks will seem insurmountable.  At others, you’ll be dragged down by the drudgery of making it through another week.  And through it all is this common thread: it’s all on you.  You set your own expectations now.  You must live up to them.

But your achievements are not what give you value, any more than others’ opinions of you define who you are.  Too many young people fall into this trap.

The truth I hope you take from home is this: if you never accomplish anything of great worth by the world’s standards, your value remains what it was the day you were born. Immeasurable. 

You, Jack, are a child of God, saved by his grace, vivified by Christ's blood. 

May that knowledge give you the courage, the compassion, and the joy to accept each day as the opportunity and gift it is. 

So, in our defense, let me explain what Dad and I did do for you: 

• We didn’t sign you up for competitive sports.  
• I cut your hair with Wahl clippers from Walmart. 
• We bought your clothes from Goodwill, Sams Club, or Atwoods.
• You were not continually surrounded by peers your own age.
• We didn’t judge your academic potential by good grades or high test scores.
• You only took the ACT once, without a prep course. 
• We didn’t encourage you to go to The College of Your Dreams. 

**********

Thirteen years ago (or was it yesterday?) we stood behind you in the chapel.  We watched, hearts in our throats, to see what you would do.  After a moment of bewildered confusion,  you squared your shoulders, then clomped sturdily to the front pew in your barn boots and Toughskinz jeans.  

And we glimpsed the man you would become.