"People who refused to leave home couldn't have settled the frontier," says the University of British Columbia's guide to parents of first-year students (aka freshmen). This bit of wisdom reached me a few months ago when we moved eldest child into his dorm.
I get the gist of the kindly-meant message: it's warning me off helicopter parenting. I'm not sure, though, where exactly the covered wagons fit in. Is my son getting an education in felling trees and overrunning terrain occupied by non-Europeans?
UBC has been a leader in promoting respect for First Nations peoples and their prior occupancy of campus lands. Buildings display plaques with indigenous names, and university ceremonies often begin with a blessing or commemoration in the appropriate aboriginal language. And yet the New World ethos seems hard to eradicate. In my school days, I learnt that 'manifest destiny' was believed to be a divine force for expansion of the United States from coast to coast; I guess it had an impact here, north of the border, too. I'll ask my kids about it, like a good immigrant.
And by the way, daily contact is working quite well, thank you, Ms. Alexander-Ellis. Praise be to Snapchat. I get to hear of son's mistakes much more quickly than I would have by Pony Express.
No comments:
Post a Comment