singing (2)

Against the protests of the squirrely kids, we went out today. And it was good. First, we visited some American friends who live downtown, went to a waffle-and-smoothie shop near their place for brunch, and played a board game together. Then we picked up some bratwurst at the nearby Christmas market, took the train to Winterthur, visited another Christmas market, and were lured by signs and curiosity to an off-lot book sale in a gymnasium. That sucked us all in so thoroughly that we ended up being five minutes late to the thing we'd actually made the trip to Winterthur for, a service of Christmas songs (first time for us but apparently an annual event for a group of English-speaking Protestants in the greater west-Switzerland area) followed by Christmas goodies. It was definitely an older crowd and decidedly British, but I had fun singing, and the kids survived the experience.

Then we went out for burgers.

I do wonder what will become of my kids. They get a lot of exposure to the Swiss ideal, which is about strong ties to your family and loyalty to your clan and learning to do everything The One Right Way...and then there's our American household, where family is the not-always-compatible group of the four of us and we make everything up on the fly. One day they're going to have Swiss partners and I'm going to be the slovenly mother-in-law who doesn't keep a proper house.

It's the nature vs. nurture of parenting: is it my job to help my kids become the people they were born to be, or is it my job to shape them into the people they should become?

And my thing about forgiveness vs. redemption: is my inability to give my kids roots a failing I have to be ashamed of and try to fix, or is it at all possible that in their rootless childhoods they'll find the tools to be more open-minded, flexible adults?

It's both, of course. Always both.

 

Before and after waffle. He doesn't seem to be suffering too much...

Important Notice: I have to cut myself off from blog writing until I finish writing (1) the kids' service for January 12, which was supposed to be done an embarrassingly long time ago and (2) my entry for the Zurich Google Spouses Advent calendar on December 18 (?!). See you on Thursday at the latest, if all goes well.