Christmas and History

I have to say that this Christmas has been the best Christmas I can remember since Santa was outed to me. Spending the last several days with Tanner and neices has been so fun. Today I got lost in a make believe world with Tanner (he was Spiderman, I was Spiderman's best friend, Thor). Yesterday I was in an imaginary conga line (me at the front and my two nieces hooked behind). On Christmas eve I frosted cookies and then helped build a ginger bread house. It was a blast!

Spending Christmas vacation with Tanner has me thinking about traditions and the passing of information and thought on to our children - the passing down of our "history". The history of everything: traditions, values, politics, religion, etc.

I believe that it's important to share with Tanner the history of what those before him discovered, decided and chose. But, I want to encourage him to analyze it and give him the freedom to disagree with it. I want to let him challenge the values we have put into the world so that he may improve upon what we've begun. I will encourage him to view the things he disputes not as a question of blame, but a question of choice. I urge him to examine and question the choices those before him have made, including...and this is the hard part...Including mine.

Although this quote seems a little harsh to me, there seems to be some truth in it:

"Parents who do not want children questioning their values are not parents who love their children, but rather, who love themselves through their children."

I pray for the courage to allow Tanner the freedom to disagree with the world we have created for him, in the hopes that he will not accept what is lacking in truth and love, and that he will always strive to improve the world.