Parenting is a Horse Trip of 6,000 Miles Part 1

Parenting is a Horse Trip of 6,000 Miles (Part 1)

If you are a parent you should understand this allegory. If you are a child you should understand it, too. I have been feeling and contemplating such things as an adult parent lately. I think of it, this extended metaphor, analyze and share it in order to understand myself, others, and life as I know it.

Parenting is like taking various travelers (depending on the number of children) on a journey on horseback for 6,000 miles. The point is to get them there, and it requires sacrfice and work. Others, everyone, share the ride and the journey; we all are going along the same ride for more or less of the same path. The way includes plains and and moutains, rivers and obstacles, great views and exhilarating moments, highs and lows, times of peace and peril.

6,000 miles is roughly representative of the amount of days that a child will be a dependent subject to their mother and father, give or take the time of pregnancy until the age of 18. After 18 years of age, this is not the end of the journey in toto, but the metaphorical voyage of 6,000 miles of youthdom has been reached; then it is on to bigger things as a more mature, more independent, more autonomous person.

Adulthood awaits after the journey of being a child, the first 6,000 miles.

Parents are horseman, with steeds that amble as they may, as adult custodians have been gifted and earned responsibility over times and circumstances to be purveyors and guides. Each rider, now a guide of their own sort, has been trained in their own fashion and custom, usually formed in a lifetime themselves a great deal by their parents before them. These horse riders and guides have recollection and access to their own journeys of a former six thousand miles. And, as life is amply evident, we observe and learn of the rides and sojourns of countless others. Some accounts we know and intuit greater than others. Some may not seem to have any corollary for some. 

The metaphorical horse journeys of a billion Chinese or another billion Indians of the sub-continent may not have any appeal or rhyme or reason to the New York city dweller, or to the central African villager. Yet, we are all born of parents. Almost all parents have similar hopes and aspirations for their young. From the arctic poles to the tropics, all of us are wending our ways across time and space. Parents are universally hitched to their charges. We all have access to the knowledge of the horse journey. Unfortunately, not all children or parents have a horse that works in the best manner as horses do. Perhaps some people have horses with severe faults, or the analogy of a horse is not right at all. Mules, donkeys, burros may be more fitting for the metaphor of how we take the trail of life. Some are so disadvantaged at birth and during life that perhaps there is no metaphoric comparison to any animal. Some people have to lug their own way without the greater vehicle of an animal to help carry their burdens and ease the way. This would be people born without limbs... good bone structure, mental and genetic weaknesses. Some of them we "carry" on our horses.

Originally for the story of this allegory I did not want to involve more than horses, i.e. mules and donkeys and camels and elephants. We could argue that some people have naturally more powerful or enduring beasts of burden like those larger steeds mentioned. The horse analogy is close enough to a real truth and still complex with intricate nuances. We will continue to compare our individual and family life-path composition and wherewithal to horses, for the purposes of this argument.

The Way

Horse riders and their caravans have many different approaches to riding, traveling, feeding, inter-marrying, socializing, helping others, sharing, saving goods for future contingencies, etcetera.

So, this is a metaphor. An extended metaphor, an allegory about our diversity and uniqueness.

The horse that we ride --and the way we ride it, the adventures arrived at thereupon-- is a metaphor for our mental, physical, social, spiritual, educational, and personal life and posture.

After those first six thousand miles of youth, likely alongside our own parents, most of us keep going on the earth. Some go onward to 12,000 miles (age 36), 18,000 miles (age 54), 24,000 miles (age 70), and on beyond for many. Interesting, perhaps, to note that the circumference of the planet is approximately 25,000 miles around, and that by making it to 70 plus years perhaps the journeyperson has made it "around the world". Not in eighty days, but in a lifetime. My own mother, a horse guide to me and others, lived to age 73 and some change, which is approximately the equivalent of the circumference of the earth. I am glad she made it that far. Notably, for some of my five horseriders, they have not been able to ride along with her since 2014, and my parenting and skills have lacker her direct input as another source of a surrogate mentor guide along the way.

I cherish that the older ones remember her. I hope some of my recounting can assist all in keeping her "alive" and present along the trail. 6,000 miles and beyond. She and her gilded horse, a unique and powerful, fun and funny

For my youngest, who was only turning three at the time of my mother's death, it is somewhat unfair that she hears much about the legend of this horse rider, not able to witness her horsemanship with her own eyes and ears as she is now approaching her own first 3,000 miles. And yet, there is comfort in the fact that shared stories and memories can bring this person alive to a young rider, and the lessons learned and recounted will have a living effect on those still ambling along.

Videos, photos, journals, memories, all those things considered as family lore or even genealogy help us co-riders move along with background, context, and orientation for our own individual and collective trips along the the way.

Jim Morrison and the Doors have a famous song called "Riders on the Storm." Fitting for him, Morrison, a rider in rougher pathways who faced steep challenges along with the successes of life, this gifted musical talent who left the path at age 27, 3,000 miles into adulthood. A renowned book about him has the attention of some; a few readers take stock in it and account for their own pathways and methods of moving along.

I have still not read it. I would like to. Hopefully before I am 54. There a few hundred other books that I would like to read before then... There are a few that I would like to write.

Sharing and recounting the voyages, the journeys, the rides, of our co-travelers is a large part of what I like to do. I see, I witness, I fathom the rides of people past and present. I compare, I contrast, I assess and I judge. I remember and I forget. Life is "pasajera", as they say in Spanish. (Translated from Google: "transient". I heard the "pasajera" saying a bit when I was younger. "Transient" may not capture the Spanish meaning, to me, but it comes close. Ephemeral might work better. In 1 Nephi Nephi writes "like a dream." Perhaps ephemeral like our dreams. Surreal and hard to either grasp or hold on to. Difficult to make tangible and nearly impossible to retain.

The brain, the mind, and the soul cannot recall all things at all times. Yet, we continue our journey, on our metaphorical horses, remembering with clarity or not.

We move on, we press on, we age and we continue along our way, riding the horse or even some other beast of burden, no matter what way we choose to ride the steed. It is possible to digress and wander, to lose our way and/or remain stagnant upon the path. Sad and tragic cases come to mind.

As a small child my father would take us to visit the young lady who was crippled for life when she sneeked out of her house as a restless teenager; she was nearly killed in a car accident. She did not die, but suffered brain damage and physical harm that left here in a convalescent home. That is where I met her. As a small child she was a little but scary, but we could tell she was nice.

I will call her Jaycee. I happened to see here many years later when I had reached adulthood. Parts of me had forgotten about her. I had spent those years since my younger years at her bedside traipsing around the globe and delving into other worlds and their respective cultures. Meanwhile she was in the same building, as I recall. Was her "horse" taken from her?

In this allegory, Jaycee's horse was crippled or physically eliminated. She became a non-self sufficient person on the pathway to 6,000 miles, 12,000 miles, 18,000 miles. We cannot control all things. Her dad became the primary care-taker for her, and eventually the state or another family member.

Our choices only take us so far. Fate steps in, too. 

End of Part 1.