Moving up. Moving out.
Today my son, who just graduated from high school, is packing up his room and moving out. He and his older brother, and another friend, are the proud new renters of an apartment in Maplewood. It's closer to where he'll be going to school and as a newly minted EMT, probably closer to where he'll work, wherever that is.
His brother moved out when he was 18 too. I thought he'd come back, after finding out how tough it is on your own. He didn't. He flourished, as most kids do. Figures, I went off to college at 18, and was the one member of my family of 2 brothers and 2 sisters who didn't move back home to live.
I hate to sound corny, but I didn't think this would all go that fast. It was only yesterday, for example, when I missed his 4th birthday because I was driving from Massachusetts to Minnesota to begin a job at Minnesota Public Radio, leaving my family behind for a month to finish jobs and school.
I still feel bad about that. It's been a terrific 18 years with the kid. And it gets me thinking of an area of politics that nobody ever dares talk about. The effect of the job on families.
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I really don't know if there's enough money in the world to make me miss a day of my kids' growing up. But if you're a parent and you run for Congress or Senate, you're giving up a lot of days.
The Blog for Bell site has a feature -- I mentioned it a few posts ago -- where they take 5 questions a week from somebody and Ford Bell answers it. So far -- and I just read KvM's questions on Gary Miller's Web site (I'd give a link but stuff lately has been appearing on my RSS feed of KvM but it's not posted at the site) -- they've all been the usual political issue and political strategy questions. Nothing wrong with that. But I get bored with that stuff after a short time.
But more and more I find I can learn a lot more about people by asking them questions about real life. Their real life.
They're not big hairy deals, just opportunities for little glimpses. And although I realize they sound judgmental, they're not intended to be.
-1- What is it that made you decide that the job in Washington was worth time away from your children?
-2- Do you mow your own lawn? How often? What do you think about when you're mowing?
-3- What's the last e-mail you sent someone you wish you hadn't?
-4- What's the one thing you'd tell your father today that he was right about, which at the time he told you, you said he was wrong about?
-5- What would you give up to spend one more day with your kids?
I don't really expect any politicians to answer these questions. But the more I hear the rote answers to the same old issues, and the more I think about the gap between some of those issues and what people face on a day-to-day basis, I'm not completely sure it's not time to start talking about what's in their heart, as well as what's on their mind.