Floating Upstream: Ourselves, our kids

So many times each day, I am compelled to reflect on the contrast between the parent I want to be and the parent I actually am--or between the parent I think I am and the parent who speaks and acts when novel and challenging situations present themselves.
For example: Sava has been playing saxophone since last summer. Early on, his saxophone teacher told him that it would be a good idea for Sava to join a band, so that he could have the experience of playing with other people. Saxophone is, by its nature, a communal instrument. After some research, I found a local band that is not tied to a school and is run by the Stanford Jazz Workshop--an organization that, despite its fancy name, is not formally affiliated with Stanford University. We couldn't apply for fall, since Sava had not played the sax long enough, but we did put in an application for Winter/Spring. Earlier today, I got an email from the band director telling me that while they did not have openings for alto sax, which is what Sava plays, they do have an opening for tenor sax. Tenor saxophones are bigger than altos, but apparently switching between them is not too hard. Before I had even spoken to him, I indulged in visions of Sava playing in this band, performing at a spring concert, with us in the audience proudly looking on. I considered the possibility that Sava might not want to switch from alto to tenor, but I did not really dwell on it.
When I showed the director's email to Sava, he read it carefully and, without dwelling on it either, told me that he did not really want to switch to tenor: he was worried about the size of the bigger instrument, the space between keys, and the having to put away his current alto sax, to which he is very much attached.
His confident "no thank you" jolted me into painful self-awareness: we pride ourselves on being parents who provide opportunities but give our children choices; we also make every effort not to project our ambitions onto our kids; we want them to feel unconditionally loved, and we don't want them ever to assume that our affection depends on their resumes. Yet, in moments like earlier today, it is so easy to slip into feeling that the child's engagement with the world somehow reflects and measures our own worth. Before I even have had time to think it, my animal self presumes that because my child is doing something interesting, like playing in a jazz band, I must have done something laudable or right.
The truth is that our children are their own people--from the moment they are born and increasingly so with every passing day. What and how they do in life has everything to do with them and very little to do with us. We need to respect, nurture, and celebrate their unique selves. We also need to get out of their way.
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Some photos from our one-night backpacking trip to Butano State Park in August 2017. Six miles uphill is nothing to sneer at. These four did a fantastic job.