So, I have decided that the best way to get to know your children is to go on a road trip. Seriously, I highly recommend it. Granted, it will depend on the type of kids you have and how many. With just my son and me in the car, it is quite easy. If you add two more kids to the mix, I am sure it becomes more difficult, but with proper planning it could go quite well … I think.
On the second leg of our trip to Colorado, we talked about sports (His topic). Our conversation about sports got philosophical quite quickly and lasted for almost an hour. I wanted to know why he played sports. You see, my son is in a lot of activities. He is in karate, he starts football in August, then wrestling, then back to karate, and if there was infinite more time and money, he would also be in swimming. He is the best swimmer that I know. He is a blue belt in karate and is getting quite good at his defensive line position in football. Of course I am biased, but I believe the previous statements are accurate.
But it was the why questions that interested me the most. I asked him about karate and if he knew why they discussed things like honor, dignity and humility. His sensei is very old school and he trains in the Okinawan Shorin Ryu school of karate. I asked him if he knew what that meant. He did not, and quite frankly, neither did I, which led to a discussion on why not ask why? This may be normal for 13-year-olds, but I found it curious. My son does a lot of things without knowing why he is doing them. He likes karate for the exercise. He likes football because he has friends on the team and he has dreams of being in the NFL. He likes swimming because I think he is part fish. My son can stay in the water all day. And when I say all day, I mean all day.
The why questions led us to a discussion about his school classes. His classes are apparently stupid and he does not see their point. We talked about the purpose of education. I explained to him that there is still a lot that he does not know and that he is not ready to be kicked out of the house yet. He agreed. We talked about goals, and why it is important to have them. We talked about life and philosophy and why there are certain rituals in his karate class. We talked about why he never asks the ‘why’ questions. His answer to this surprised me, it’s because no one else does. I said, “You are right, most people don’t ask the ‘why’ questions, and if you can learn to do this, you will be a step ahead of everyone else. It is important to ask why, especially when you don’t know the answer.”
I have no idea how my son will look back on this summer when he is older. I hope he will look back in a positive way. I hope I am not coming across preachy. I hope he is not becoming skilled at tuning me out, which I am sure he does more often than I would care to admit. But nonetheless, it was a good ride to Colorado and I learned a lot. It makes me wonder how much we could all learn about one another if we could just periodically be stuck in a car for 16 hours. Can’t wait until the drive home at the end of the month. We still have a lot of topic cards left.
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One interesting thing I learned on the second leg of the trip. My son wants to see his birthplace, Lawrence, Kansas. As we drove through Nebraska I said look around, it’s a lot like this, except with fewer trees. Despite my description of his birth state, he still wants to go. So, we will be taking the long way home through Kansas. I will just have one thing to say to my son before we embark on our Kansas journey. Be prepared to be disappointed. I’m just sayin’ …
Yup. It looks just like this.
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