ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 14, 1996 TAG: 9601120011
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: The Back Pew
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
It was Monday before Jacob and Andrew really got out into the white playground that Mother Nature sent last weekend. Even then, it was a fairly tentative journey into the street where the snow was not quite as deep as in the back yard.
The boys' parents, Joe and April Fridley, bundled the boys and themselves tight against the elements and ventured into the drifting expanse of snow in Eagle Rock.
The boys are 5 and 3, so the snow might as well have been as deep as the sea. They could get lost in its drifts; slip into a dark, white hole with a slight misstep.
The risks we adults face in the snow don't seem nearly as terrifying as when you imagine facing them when you're only 3 feet tall. That's why Mom and Dad were always within reach.
Even in such potentially hazardous circumstances, however, Joe and April wanted their boys to experience some of the fun that snow makes possible. They certainly wouldn't have wanted the boys to miss playing in what could be the deepest snowfall they'll ever see.
As I thought about the boys later, it seemed to me their release into the snow could be a metaphor for every parent's experience.
We spend the first few winters supervising our children's faltering play in a snowy wonderland whose dangers they cannot recognize. Then we turn them loose to play on their own for the next few winters. Later still, we send them out with a shovel and tell them they can play when their work clearing the steps is finished. Finally, we turn them loose into winters on their own.
Our walk through life is much like moving through that drifted snow. Sometimes it's easy and fast over a sure, hard-packed surface; other times it's a tough slog through waist-deep obstructions.
I am about to turn my eldest loose into college and an adult life that seems fraught with all the dangers of this snowfall and more.
There are physical dangers. We live in a sometimes violent world that can lash out at our children any time, even when they are still within our reach.
We all try to teach our children how to avoid or cope with those objective hazards. But they are not so frequent or treacherous as the subjective, intangible decisions we face about how to interact with our fellow human beings.
It is those moral and ethical dangers that pose the greatest threat to our children.
Preparing them for that moral morass is parents' greatest challenge.
It's easy to teach them where to step when they face a two-foot snowfall. It's not so easy to teach them how to choose between selfishness and generosity, between reason and recklessness, between right and wrong.
It's not so easy to teach them where to put their feet when a friend or a minister betrays or misleads them. It's tough teaching them how to tell who they should trust, who they should honor, who they should obey.
If my daughter gets stuck in an ethical dilemma, will a neighbor come to help her out? Maybe more importantly, if her neighbor is stuck, will my daughter offer aid?
The recent snowfall provided numerous opportunities to test our willingness to help a neighbor in need. We all saw and heard examples of good will. The newspaper carrier who shoveled out a single woman's snow-blocked door. The neighbors who pitched in to clean a shut-in's sidewalk. The co-worker who ran all over town in her four-wheel drive vehicle to pick up stranded friends.
Fortunately, battling against the whims of nature seems nearly always to bring out the best in most of us.
Unfortunately, it may be more difficult to find a friend to stand up for us when we voice an unpopular opinion, or when we subscribe to a minority religion, or when we defy conventions of lifestyle.
Teaching my children to weather ethical blizzards is far more difficult and less certain than demonstrating the correct way to shovel snow.
And I really can't know whether I've done it right until the children are on their own.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB