Not everything. But some things.
I thought that being placed in charge of a child would instill in me the knowledge that other parents - my own - seemed always to possess. That by becoming a father, the best choice, the logical selection, would now be obvious.
Instead, those right, rational choices remain as elusive as ever.
I have a whole new appreciation for my parents. Or rather, a new interpretation of them. It's not that I didn't appreciate them. I did.
But as a boy I had no idea what they were up against, this business of making one's way in the world, this endeavor of raising a child. Now I find myself looking at life's challenges through their eyes. I look at my child and imagine how my parents looked at me.
I think that being a parent is a little like being a chemist. Or maybe an engineer. Everybody brings similar tools to the table. But nobody has a guaranteed plan. So everybody is left to do what he thinks might work, to pay attention to what others are doing, and try to build on that progress.
But when I was growing up, my mother and father, I was sure, always knew exactly the right thing to do in every situation, whether it was a child slipping into the deep end of a pool or a washing machine overflowing in the kitchen. My mom and dad knew the answers to every question. They divided light from darkness. If, as a child, I asked my dad, "Right or left?" he said, "Left." If I asked, "Now?" he said, "Not yet." If I asked, "Is there a God?" he said, "Yes."
I remember once, when I was 5 or 6, my dad was driving me to visit my grandmother, so I could show her my new dog. This was in the days before seat belts were widely used, and no one saw any danger in having a child ride standing up in the passenger seat. We were heading north on Route 130, near Burlington, N.J., and had just passed a gas station where the sign on the pump read 39 cents/gallon.
"What's that noise?" I asked.
My dad didn't know. But he heard it too.
