Thursday, August 02, 2007

Return to Hearth, Home & Paranoia

For the interested regulars, my daughters have returned home safely from their month in Scotland. They brought back a few souvenirs and 1300 photos, most of which look a lot like this:


What's not to love? Happily, they received A's and full credit for their Medieval Warfare classwork. More importantly, they also seem to have picked up all the intangible benefits of youthful international travel--independence, confidence, new perspectives and friends--that my wife and I could have wished for. A tremendously successful trip on all accounts.

What's funny is that they just drove off to visit a friend seven miles away and I asked them to call me when they arrived. I'm fine when they're eight time zones from home but turn into neurotic Dad when they're under my roof. I trust them; it's just all those other drivers I worry about. And hey, it's a narrow winding road. Anything could happen.

Parenting = Always envisioning the worst-case scenario.
.

2 comments:

Sherwood Harrington said...

They brought back a few souvenirs and 1300 photos, most of which look a lot like this:
More, please!

Parenting = Always envisioning the worst-case scenario.
Bad news for you, Brian: that never stops, no matter how old the offspring get to be. I think Mike's mom, Ronnie-with-a-capital-R, would back me up on this. I know that my parents would!

But, if you stop and think about it, that's also good news in a way. It's an assurance that caring won't stop until your metabolism does.

Maybe not even then, depending on some metaphysical stuff that's beyond my expertise.

Brian Fies said...

Bad news for you, Brian: that never stops, no matter how old the offspring get to be.

Well, that's not very reassuring. I was hoping I'd get a good night's sleep someday.

I need to ask the girls if they'll let me borrow some more photos. They've got some good ones.