I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what sort of parent I am going to be. Some of this is a result of a conversation I had with Victoria last week as we compared/contrasted the parenting style of our respective mothers. What qualities of our parents do we want to emulate in how we raise our own child -- and what situations are best served as an example of what not to do?
And the lessons don't stop coming on your 18th birthday. My father passed away when I was 23. At the time and for some years on I had not really appreciated the notion that there were still things he could teach me (after all, 23 year-olds know everything, right?). However after having CC I often found myself asking, "How did my father handle situation X when he was in my shoes?" In many cases I can just think back to an event where such happened to me and recall how he handled it. But there have been more than a few cases where I was too young to remember, or the answers are more about his thought process rather than his visible actions. I can't help but regret the inability to ask him.