Growing a family

My son turns 16 this week.  He told me what he wants for his birthday.  He wants “freedom”.  He is still mad at me since I made him go to bed last night earlier than 11:30.  Despite the fact that he had to get up this morning at 5:30 so that he could be driven the 30 minutes to get to school and go to band practice before 7.

The one thing that most people forget about freedom is that there is a tremendous amount of responsibility that comes with it.  If you want freedom to do the things that you want to do, when you want to do them, then you must accept the responsibility of being able to get there on time, but also have the money to do what you want to do.

I told him that he had to prove that he has the ability to be responsible for freedom.  At the age of 16 he gets up in the morning.  He has to be told to get up, but he gets up.

I remember that the only way that I would get up in the morning would be for my father to come into my room and shake me.  We had a dog named “Willie” who was my dog.  He was my best friend, and he was my protector.  Dad would come into my room and shake me.  When he did Willie would begin to “protect” me.  If it would have been anybody else, Willie would have holes and tears in the skin and probably taken big chunks of skin from his hide.  But not from Dad.

When Dad would shake me, he was also coaching Willie.  He would say “Let’s get him up Willie, come on boy”.  As soon a Dad put his hands on my shoulders Willie would begin bouncing on the bed, growling like he was going to rip Dad to shreds.  Dad would keep coaxing him.  “Come on Boy, let’s get him up.”  Dad would begin bouncing me up and down on the bed by pushing me into the mattress and releasing me.

Willie would growl and grab Dad’s arms with his mouth.  He looked like the terrier version of one of those crazy attack dogs you see on TV.  What woke me up usually would be Willie jumping all over me to protect me from Dad.

He would leave teeth marks on Dad’s arms, and of course the obligatory dog slobber from finger tips to elbows.  He never drew blood from Dad, at least not that I know of, but there were imprints on me from the claw marks of a protective dog.

And as for the point of this story, I fed Willie most of the time.  I was responsible.