The Future is Now - from "The Boundary with Kids” by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend
“It was a normal day, but one that would forever change my friend’s parenting. We had finished dinner, and I (Dr. Cloud) was visiting with my friend, Allison, and her husband, Bruce, when she left the dinner table to do some chores. Bruce and I continued to talk until a phone call took him away as well, so I went to see if I could lend Allison a hand.
I could hear her in their fourteen-year-old son Cameron’s room. I walked in to a scene that jolted me. She was cheerfully putting away clothes and sports equipment and making the bed. She struck up a conversation as if things were normal: “I can’t wait for you to see the pictures from our trip. It was so much —“
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m cleaning up Cameron’s room,” she said. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“You are what?”
“I told you. I’m cleaning up his room. Why are you looking at me like that?”
All I could do was to share with her the vision in my head. “I just feel sorry for Cameron’s future wife.”
Allison straightened up, frozen for a moment, and then hurried from the room. I walked into the hall to see her standing there motionless. Not knowing what to say, I said nothing. After a few moments, she looked at me and said, “I’ve never thought about it that way.”
Not have most of us. We parent in the present without thinking about the future. We usually deal with the problems at hand . . . But one goal of parenting is to keep an eye on the future. We are raising our children to be responsible adults.