My son in law and I got to spend some time together today, and I was reading some of his new daddy books, and ran across this goody:

Spend time with your kid and their friends when they are young, and they will see nothing un-natural in your spending time with them when they are teenagers. There is no better protection against undesirable friends...

I learned this valuable lesson from my aunt and uncle, who had 4 of their own, and there was always more than that at the table for any meal. There must be at least a couple of hundred ex kids who remember "Aunt" Bettye and "Uncle" Wade most fondly, and come to think of it, I guess Cathie and I have about the same number. You will have no more worthwhile experiences than those you share with growing kids. You are building your own statue that way...

I sent both my children away to boarding school, son beginning in 8th, and daughter in 6th (the earliest they took them for her), and they were 90 mile from home. Both were basketball managers, and for 3 years, we didn't miss a game, home or away. To this day, with all of those school- and team-mates with whom they maintain contact, they ask about us. We saw those kids more often than their own parents, and we were in loco parentis in many ways. We'll never have any statues or pages in history books, or even a headline in the paper, but it's worth much more to live on in a kid's heart.

I'm not bragging here. I'm trying to sell you on being a parent of the heart as well as of the blood. They need you, some a lot more than others, but they all need you. None of their parents are perfect, and you may be the perfect one to fill that lack, and the kids have an uncanny talent for finding what they need if it's there to be found. Bless the children, for we leave nothing else behind us but a mess and a bad smell...