Parenting Is Like Driving a Vehicle

There was a very powerful personal essay put up on mockingbird last week by Cole Huffman called XL grace and it begins like this he says my oldest son 26 is caught in drug and alcohol addiction spanning seven years now. He has a tattoo of the Roman numeral 40 specifically Psalm 40 that his dad Abana would my rear made that his go to prayer for him. A friend once gave me an apt child rearing analogy he said parenting is like driving a vehicle during the growing up years the parents are in the front seats we move to the back seats when the child is all enough to navigate life on his own but if he goes off road at full speed bouncing his parents around violently something