Raising children requires me to live in the tension between life’s natural paradoxes.  A paradox happens when two separate and opposing life truths are in simultaneous operation in one day in my life.

Yesterday I picked up my daughter from school.  As I heaved her 20 lb. backpack (no lie, I weighed it) into the car, I wrestled to find my way between the paradox of two great proverbs:

• 1. “Prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child.”
• 2. “Beware becoming a boiled frog.”

Preparing the child for the path would require me to accept the sheer mass of homework coming home and to purchase a roller back pack.  I see many elementary school age children wheeling their back packs around these days.  However, I am left to wonder, what path are they on exactly?  Are they in pursuit of a kind of academic excellence I could never have imagined in my elementary school days?  Perhaps these children are headed toward the house of tomorrow (K. Gilbran), and I must acknowledge the journey and help prepare my kids with the proper equipment.

And yet, boiled frogs become cooked by degrees as they accept and adapt to each new increase in the temperature of the water.  Adaptation is what good amphibians do.  The dead frog kept preparing himself for the path he was on, all the while never stopping to wonder if the path might need some adjustment – like a temperature change.

So, what is a mother to do?  My fundamental problem of course is that I do not believe an elementary school student should lug home 20 lbs of books and spend two hours working to keep up with and get ahead of the week’s homework.  I question the value of handwriting practice and mindless vocabulary drills, which research shows, will have little impact on a child’s overall handwriting skill and vocabulary development.

For right now, though, I chafe at the idea that my good ‘amphibian’ will boil herself (bow her spine and injure her shoulders) before she will question the path.  Any soul walking the path ought to have the option of speaking up to challenge the path and make some decision before they decide to hoof down the road with a heavily laden pack.  Right?

Of course, it is not my path.  I suppose that is the point.

Curse the American ideal which values the individual and her freedom above all else.  Why can’t I just fall into line like everyone else and allow my daughter to do whatever her teacher asks of her without question?

It is a simple paradox really, I wish for the humility to trust in the Path and my child’s house of tomorrow, but I also have deep concern for the frog.