I grew up watching Bob Keeshan play Captain Kangaroo. I don’t remember the show vividly to be completely honest. I believe I had moved on to bigger and better things by the time I started forming real memories. My memories of the show are more impressions than anything else. I found a quote from Keeshan this morning, though, that indicates he may have at least somewhat influenced the person who I became as an adult.

The responsibility of parents is to raise children who do not need parents.

When my son is an adult I want him to not need me anymore.  I want him to call me or shoot me an email every once in a while to let me know what is going on in his life, hell maybe even every day if he feels like it, but I want him to lead his life on his own.  I want him to face the challenges life throws at him on his own two feet, and when life knocks him on his ass I want him to get back up again on his own.  If he can’t I want him to know he can always call on me to help but I want that to be the aboslute last thing he would do – not the first.  Not because I will make him feel like shit about it, but becuase he doesn’t WANT to get help from anyone else to solve his problems.

I have, in the last few weeks, seen two very different examples of how bad it is for adults to rely on their parents to get them through life and I can’t have that for Alex.