{"id":658,"date":"2011-07-10T21:23:22","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T01:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=658"},"modified":"2011-07-10T21:23:22","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T01:23:22","slug":"trading-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/trading-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"Trading Kids"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nHe didn\u2019t need training wheels anymore, but there was no way our cautious little boy was going to let us take them off. My husband didn\u2019t say it, but I knew what he was thinking: \u201cThe kid will be twenty, and he still won\u2019t know how to ride a two-wheeler.\u201d<\/p>\n

Up and down the driveway they went, Steve patiently urging him on, a hand at his back, seven-year-old Henry earnestly pedaling. It was past time for this bird to fly. But he was afraid to test his wings.<\/p>\n

So, we did what we always did in our old neighborhood: we turned to \u201cthe village\u201d for help. Henry needed a push, and he needed to get it from a dad who wasn\u2019t his own flesh and blood. Which is how it happened that our next-door neighbor Bob loaded Henry and his little bike into their van one summer afternoon and took off, with a promise that they wouldn\u2019t return until Henry was ready to arrive on his own two wheels.<\/p>\n

Within an hour we were standing out in the back yard to cheer on our boy as he came soaring down the driveway, a mile-wide grin plastered across his face. Bob was modest, as always, but clearly pleased: another child launched. It didn\u2019t matter a bit that it wasn\u2019t one of his. My husband ached, just a little; he\u2019d wanted for himself the satisfaction of teaching his first-born son how to ride a bike. But he was also wise enough to know that what we had was even better — a web of parents looking out for one another and sharing the joys and challenges of raising our children together.<\/p>\n

Our sons grew up knowing all the nooks and crannies, the refrigerator contents, and the house rules of the Cashions and the Wickerhams as well as they knew their own. We had the yard for baseball games and the overflowing basket of dress-up clothes and puppets for theatrical productions. The Wickerhams were the go-to family for backyard bonfires, sleep-outs on the deck, and a reliable bagel supply. The Cashions had the best house for hide-and-seek, dance music, and Slip \u2018n\u2019 Slide on a hot summer day.<\/p>\n

They were a pack of seven children thrown together by age and proximity, and they forged fortuitous, enduring friendships, just as we parents did. Somehow we all agreed, without ever having to discuss it, that we would be there for one another. We traded kids and meals and driving duties, hand-me-down clothes and hard-won wisdom. There was laughter and tears, lots and lots of listening, plenty of advice, both sought and unsought. Traditions, celebrations, and memories.<\/p>\n

The kids are mostly grown now, ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-one and separated by geography, different schools, different life experiences. We left our old green house on the cul de sac seven years ago, certain that we were leaving as well our accidental, fortuitous village, the extra moms and dads who had contributed so much to our sons\u2019 lives just by being there, by loving them enough to keep their homes and their hearts open to two little boys who just happened to live next door.<\/p>\n

If someone could have flashed me forward then, from the day we pulled out of the shared driveway for the last time, to the summer of 2011, I might not have shed quite so many tears about moving away. I would have seen that friendship can be nurtured and deepened from a distance, that children turn as naturally toward love as plants turn toward the sun, and that the closeness our families created back when we were all just learning how to be families is stronger than the pull of time or distance.<\/p>\n

This summer, Jack is working in Boston, an hour and a half from our house in New Hampshire. It\u2019s possible only because the Cashions\u2019 back door is still open for him, even now. Monday through Thursday, he sleeps at their house, where he is fed and loved and driven to the train station each morning by my friend Carol, his other mother.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll always remember how we learned that Lia Wickerham had arrived in the neighborhood, nineteen years ago last week: over our baby monitor, tuned to the same frequency as theirs, only a few yards away: \u201cI\u2019ll change her,\u201d we heard her dad Wendell say on the night they brought her home, \u201cI might as well learn how right now.\u201d Born right between Henry and Jack, Lia was friend and playmate to both. So when she came home the other day after nearly two weeks in the hospital, still struggling with some mysterious digestive illness, it seemed only natural to offer her a few days of R&R at our house in the country, to give both her and her exhausted, worried mom a break.<\/p>\n

Yesterday morning, Jack and Lia and I took a walk through the woods. The kids reminisced about old times, their childhood memories astonishingly vivid and fresh. What they clearly cherished most of all was the very fact of their long history together, the preciousness of these friendships that began at birth and have managed to survive all the twists and turns in the road to adulthood. And there was something else too. \u201cWe all had three moms,\u201d Lia said. \u201cThat was so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes I still miss being the 24\/7 mother of two little boys and the on-call mom for whatever combination of kids happened to playing out on the swing set on any given afternoon. But I wouldn\u2019t have traded any of those long-gone days for the pleasure of yesterday, walking through a glorious July morning and listening to the conversation of these two thoughtful young adults who trust one another enough to share not only their memories of the past (Barney underwear and backyard circuses) but the very real challenges and questions they face in the present.<\/p>\n

This may just be one of the greatest lessons we can pass on to our children — that in this complicated world, neither nations nor individuals can resolve their problems by themselves. Our lives, our destinies, are interconnected. It\u2019s okay to ask for help and a blessing to be in a position to offer it, whether we are fifteen or fifty-two, for someday the tables will be turned. Developing a sense of universal responsibility, we move toward a better life for all. Perhaps I wasn\u2019t fully conscious of that, back in the days when our sons felt perfectly comfortable grabbing an apple out of the next door neighbor\u2019s fridge or wearing a best friend\u2019s outgrown winter jacket, but I know it now. We are here to take care of one another. There are plenty of kids to go around, always someone to nurture, always a child who could use a sympathetic ear, a bed to sleep in, or a meal prepared with love. Being a mother means taking care not only of our own families, but of our neighbors and our global family as well. We need each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He didn\u2019t need training wheels anymore, but there was no way our cautious little boy was going to let us take them off. My husband didn\u2019t say it, but I knew what he was thinking: \u201cThe kid will be twenty, and he still won\u2019t know how to ride a two-wheeler.\u201d Up and down the driveway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,24,27,29,30,39,8,14],"tags":[182,230,301,324],"class_list":{"0":"post-658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-compassion","8":"category-connection","9":"category-family-life","10":"category-friendship","11":"category-gratitude","12":"category-midlife","13":"category-parenting","14":"category-soul-work","15":"tag-friendship-2","16":"tag-interconnection","17":"tag-motherhood","18":"tag-parenting-2","19":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}