Where Credit is Due

When I wrote my sort-of-Father's-day-ish post I had something else I wanted to add but didn't want to contaminate the message. I've been thinking a lot about something J. K. Rowling said during her Harvard Commencement speech in 2008. If you haven't seen it, check it out. 


J.K. Rowling said that she believed there was a statute of limitations on how long a person can blame their parents for the decisions they make in their life (my horrible paraphrase). I have meditated on this for many hours because, although she made the statement as both a parent and a daughter, it always seemed a bit one-sided to me. Being unable to argue it away, however, I adopted the belief as my own.

As a parent, my biggest fear is scarring my children, having some irreversible effect on them that leaves an emotional wound. It is comforting to imagine that if I do any damage, that damage will be temporary.


As a daughter I can only imagine the burden my parents would carry if I continued to cite them as an excuse for my behavior. And THAT'S when it dawned on me. What behavior could I possibly blame on anyone. I'm an adult. One of the things I learned in becoming an adult was to take responsibility for my actions. And although I can be a little mischievous at times, I'm fairly certain that the only emotion I invoke in my parents is pride. 


Ah ha!


But pride is where J.K. Rowling lost me. If parents, including myself, can call "not it" when the Blame Game starts, then shouldn't we throw in the towel on Accreditation? If we can all agree that grown men and women should begin to make their own decisions, independent of their parents' influence; then do we, as parents, have any right to take credit for their achievements once they do? You can't claim Credit if you are unwilling to adopt Blame (they're twins you know). That reminds me of a saying I heard a lot when I was a kid: "You can't have your cake and eat it too." It makes so much more sense to me now.

And I'm back to square one. I don't know what to think. If my children grow up to be responsible adults, I am certainly planning to take my share of the credit. It isn't a secret that parenting is a difficult job, and I would be lying to say that if anything bad happened to them, I wouldn't carry the blame: I would. So when do I let go?

Obviously you can't designate adulthood by age. We have all had friends who were 24 and acted like 12-year-olds. Some of us still do. But when they do finally grow up and stop blaming their parents for everything, maybe their parents can finally take that much needed pat on the back. Hell, they should take ten. They should just keep in mind that there is a statute of limitations on the amount of credit they can give themselves. Those kids are no longer kids, the blame is no longer yours, and the credit has always gone to the one making the decisions.

Thank you Ms. Rowling. It was a good lesson to learn early in the game.