Common goodness

My husband and I are about to be left behind. I’m talking about something more predictable than the apocalypse: our son will be leaving home in the fall to go to college. We will still have two younger kids at home, so we’re not yet empty nesters, but I nonetheless have a strong sense of nostalgia as I contemplate how quickly time flies and the inevitable changes that are upon our family life.
This has me thinking about the big picture of what I want for my children. What do I want for them from the community that nurtures them through to adulthood, and what do I want from the world out there that will be their home in the future?
 The groundwork has long been in place for my kids’ nurturing – our parenting strengths and weaknesses are well established. We’ve done the best we can as a family to juggle the demands of education and career, work and play, individual, family and community interests. I’ve been a parent in three different cities (Durham, NC, Colorado Springs, CO and Healdsburg), and at various points over the past 12-plus years of educating them, my children have been in public, private and charter schools. I’m happy to report that this community is the most supportive of public education and as a result the Healdsburg public schools are among the best we’ve experienced. While no school (of any kind) is perfect, there is a strong community approach to raising educated kids here, for which I am very grateful.
There is also a community approach to simply raising kids here. I love that I sometimes receive good-natured reports from people who have seen my kids out and about. My kids have the good fortune to have two parents with good jobs and education. Nonetheless, I am keenly aware that as a family we still depend on our community to provide an important part of what makes for a good upbringing. This is why we are members of an intentional community in the form of church (among other things, church is an extended family of aunts, uncles and grandparents). At the same time we see that our kids are growing up to be more well-rounded people because of the community spirit of Healdsburg.
We as a community show love for our children when we vote to pay higher taxes to support our public schools. The value of those discount cards we purchase every fall to support sports programs has nothing to do with 2-for-1 deals and everything to do with loving our kids and wanting what’s best for them. When we first moved here my youngest son (who was 8 at the time) walked down to the neighborhood grocery store to pick up a few things. (We live close. I was nervous, but my husband insisted he could do it and he was right.) My son was a few cents short when he went to check out and the store manager guided him through the process of getting his own rewards card so he could get discounts. That is the kind of love this community shows our kids.
The truth is, it does take a village. No so-called nuclear family can, in isolation, give kids all the wisdom, support, guidance – parenting – they need to grow up to be wise and responsible adults.
If there’s one philosophy on parenting and life in general that I believe, it’s that life is complicated and to live well we must consciously navigate our way through the myriad of choices we face daily. Contrary to what advertisers would have us believe, we can’t have it all or do it all. Choices must be made, and not all of them are equal. As my kids get older and make more of their own choices, I hope I’ve set them up to make good ones – choices that move them toward what they value and want most out of life and that are responsible to the world around them. None of us is perfect, and no one is going to get it right every step of the way. But when we get down to what it really means to live a full life, courage counts far more than perfection.
So what do I want from the world waiting out there? I want a prosperous economy that welcomes young people when they are ready to enter the work force. I want a beautiful and healthy natural environment that is in balance with the industries of the world. I want freedom from scarcity for everyone and the possibility for people from all cultures and corners of the world to thrive. While I’m at it, I want world peace.
But seeing as how the influence of my parenting stops short of organizing the world out there, I’ll settle for this: I want our kids to be really good at what should be common amongst us – common goodness and good old fashioned common sense. I want them to have the common sense to recognize and appreciate goodness in themselves and others and in the world around them, and I want them to have the joy of simple gratitude when they see common goodness in the world in which they live. Most of all I want them to see a lot goodness out there.
The Rev. Sally Hanes Hubbell is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Healdsburg.