Lessons from a Goose

One of the reasons I enjoy running is that it gives me a chance to stop what I'm doing and think. I am constantly trying to fill my day: working, checking e-mail or Facebook, reading for pleasure, preparing a Sunday School lesson, studying Chinese or Spanish...and now writing a blog. I find it difficult to be still. But running gives me an opportunity to get away from all that. Isn't that funny? That by "running" I find "rest"? Often I will listen to music: sometimes praise music, sometimes rock and roll, sometimes instrumental. Other times I will listen to a podcast of language learning or an interesting sermon. And occasionally I'll get really crazy and not listen to anything. Just me alone with my thoughts. That's when things get interesting. I start to see and hear things around me that I would otherwise have missed.

Recently I was running along my favorite trail which is alongside a creek near my house. It's one of the places that wildlife can congregate in my suburban neighborhood. As I left my car and walked to the beginning of the trail, I saw some geese (not quite a gaggle) along the creek bank. Walking closer, I noticed that there were two "families" next to one another.

In the first family, the mother and father sat close together with their four goslings in between them. As I passed by, the mother spread one of her wings over her offspring while the father kept a watchful eye on me.


I walked down the path to the next family passing another mother and father with several goslings. But here the arrangement was different. The mother sat beneath one tree, the father beneath another about twenty feet away. Between them played their children, exploring and honking happily. The mother and father watched me with one eye and their goslings with the other. But they never moved.

It didn't dawn on me until I was a mile into my run what I had just seen: a metaphor for parenting styles. Some parents, in an effort to protect their kids, hover over them. The parents hem in their kids so tightly that they have no room to explore, to make mistakes, to grow. They are safe, true, but will they be ready to "fly" when the time comes? Other parents stand back and watch as their kids get dirty on the playground of life. Mom and Dad are poised to help...but only when needed. My wife, Tracy, was given by her mother a book called The Blessing of a Skinned Knee by Wendy Mogel. As is obvious from the title, the author advocates allowing children to experience the real world and to suffer the occasional consequence. Of course, I'm not suggesting subjecting our children to danger or allowing them to live their lives without direction. But a tree will only grow to the size of the space in the forest around it; so, too, will our children grow.

So, watch your children. Keep them safe. Encourage them to explore. Let them know you love them. Be prepared to bandage the skinned knee instead of always preventing it.