The First Day of School - [The Courtship Series #17]

Transcript

Morning, buddy. Hey, sweetheart. Good morning to you, too.

Well, look at you, big man, ready for your first day of school. Oh, my gosh, you look totally awesome. No, you look like one awesome dude.

Let me see your shoes. Oh, are those the new ones mommy bought for you? How awesome.

Did you say thank you to mommy? You look like you are ready to go out there and make some friends and learn some stuff and be the little man in charge of the playground. That's what you look like.

All right, eat up. Yes, sweetheart, I do have a meeting this morning, but I told them that it was important for me that I get him off to school the very first day. Everybody understood.

Meeting's been bummed back by an hour. You'll be fine. Sweetie, it's a done deal.

It's done. They've already moved the meeting back. Nobody's expecting me at work until nine.

Okay. So what can I do at this point to help? I know and I really appreciate you including me in all the school shopping and the preparations.

You know, I think a lot of dads get disconnected from that stuff. And it was really special to me to be part of it. And I appreciate you waiting until I was available to be able to go and do that together.

It was some really nice family time. Thank you. Now, I know you well enough to tell that there's something stressing you out here.

Why don't you talk to me about it? Sweetheart, he's fine. He's over there chilling, eating his breakfast.

Let's just, you and me, just talk. Mm-hmm. I know, first day of school for our little guy.

Is it just that though? Is it just first day jitters that you've got too? Or is there more, you know, underpinning what you're feeling right now? Yeah, that's something I think about too.

Hey, hey, relax. Hang on. Just deep breath, okay? One thing at a time.

He was starting to get into a ramble there of all the things piling up all at once. Let's just break that stream of thought. Take them one at a time.

First thing, it's normal to have first day jitters. Anytime you got a big thing like this, new situation, new event, new activity, whatever, it's totally normal to have first day jitters and wonder if you got everything squared away, if you remembered everything that's needed, if you got all of the pre-work done, okay? But you've been there before.

Remember how you were leading up to our wedding and you were worried about every single detail and whether everything was going to be just perfect? What did I tell you? I told you everything was going to work out just fine.

I told you that you had planned everything to the T. You had everything figured out, right? And when you stopped worrying and obsessing over every single detail, what happened? Did the plans fall apart? Right, because you'd already figured everything out.

You've done the same thing here. You figured out everything that's needed. You read everything that you were sent from the school.

You've talked to the other moms and you and I went to the parents' night over at the school. Remember, met the teacher. You have everything figured out.

All the pieces are in place. It's okay to let yourself off the hook and stop worrying. It really is.

I want you to remember too that you've got a teammate here, right? A partner in all of this. You're not alone.

Yeah, baby. The other thing I want to talk to you about is the second part of what you've said. You're worried about our little guy and everything that could possibly happen to him.

You're worried about whether he's going to get injured. You're worried about whether the kids are going to be nice to him. You're worried about whether he's going to be the one that's mean to their kids.

You're worried about the things that he gets from the outside world that may not jive with the lessons and the morals and the principles that we have been trying to teach him. I get that. I worry about the same things too.

We can't live our lives in fear. We can't live waiting for every bad thing that could possibly come our way, his way, whatever. Something could always happen to anyone.

That doesn't mean it's likely to. And it doesn't mean that it's a good thing for a kid to be wrapped up in bubble wrap and kept safe from the world so that nothing could ever happen. When you were a kid, did you get into scrapes? Did you get hurt? Who hasn't skinned their knee on the playground, right? But you were okay.

That's the point. And so was I. We got better.

Yet there is a remote possibility of a severe thing happening. That's true. But that's just part of the risk of living life.

And when we signed on to be parents, we accepted the risk that something could happen to this beautiful little life that we were bringing into the world that could take it away from us early. We can't prepare or prevent everything that could possibly happen. All we can do is be calm, address the things that are within our power to address, teach him to be safe, and enjoy the journey.

And that's what we really need to be doing now, enjoying the journey. This is a day for celebration. It's a day for happiness.

Not a day for fear and remorse. Not a day for angst, okay? And that's true.

He could learn things that are contrary to what we've tried to teach him. But part of the job that we have as parents is to teach him how to interact with the world, how to receive inputs from different individuals and groups, how to process things, new things that he comes across. Because we're not raising this boy to be clones of us.

We're raising this boy so that he can get out there in that great big world as a grown man someday and make it.