Mama Don t Let Your Boys Grow Up Again Cowboys

No, they "ain't" no cowboys
"Mama, don't let your sons abound up to be cowboys" the song goes, or in our case, sailors and rock climbers--just then again, why not?

We all have loftier hopes for our children and what they could/should/might do with their lives. Study well, do your best, reach success, and thus we, parents, volition be fulfilled with the satisfaction that nosotros accept done our all-time. But when we plugged our family dorsum into a life on country after ten years of living and sailing on our boat, Cowabunga, across seas and continents from Europe to California, maybe it was too much to expect that our sons just live and plan futures like regular citizens.

In loftier schoolhouse, both our sons continued to be sailors. For a while, they were a team, competing together in 49ers, a grade of a high operation sailing skiffs ("49er" meaning four.9 meters, or 16 ft.), and individually they cultivated their own crewing and rigging specialties, forth with being consistently recruited as crew on other boats. They attended the French Lycée Français high school in San Francisco, a very academic plan that didn't leave much room for later on-school activities. They filled their weekends with sailing.

When our oldest son, Sean, announced early on in his teens that he wanted to exist a professional crewman, we said that was all well-and-good, but that he should have a Plan B, specifically, to pursue a college degree that he could plug in somewhere downwardly the line in order to get by should the demand ascend (which we were most certain information technology would). After all, both his begetter and mother (Michel and I) had college degrees and professions other than being sailors that nosotros were able to fall back upon when the demand arose. On occasion during our 10 years of a cruising vagabond life, we would have to plug dorsum into the existent globe to make money in gild to keep on our sailing journey.

Sean did give it the erstwhile higher try, literally. He dutifully enrolled at the local junior college, merely he never actually got off to a good start. There was always a crucial regatta the same day of a lecture or an exam. Or there was some all-important yacht club function where he just had to make an appearance, mingle, and choose his contacts. Sean was, and is, good at this. "Networking" and "marketing" we call it today. Annihilation that had to practice with sailing and could be seen as an of import stepping-stone toward his advocacy to his goal of sailing for a living always trumped whatever else was on his calendar. Consequently, schoolhouse courses fell by the wayside and were presently forgotten altogether. Aside from his promising abilities early on as a bowman--the one who manipulates the spinnaker and all other sails the most frontward of the boat--he learned the craft of sailmaking when he worked at North Sails, and the intricacies of gunkhole rigging as he repaired and created systems for boats. Today, Sean has made a lucrative career as a professional bowman, and is i of a pocket-size elite grouping of international professional sailors, criss-crossing oceans in high stake regattas. He has amassed an impressive resumé of well-known sailing events under his belt (or harness in his case) including an America's Cup regatta.

Our second son, Brendan floundered somewhat after loftier schoolhouse, not certain of what he wanted to do, or what direction he wanted to take. He had a multitude of interests and aptitudes, and he was becoming disenchanted with sailing birthday. He was ever fatigued to the outdoors--a logical connection since he had ever lived out there while on Cowabunga, since his birth. Camping, hiking, skiing, rock climbing, isolation in the wilderness...he wanted, did, (and withal does) it all.

Brendan harbors a deep-rooted disdain for all things regimented and most particularly a rigid school environment (specifically existence in a classroom with walls, desks, and windows!) but even so he was a good educatee if the subject field interested him and he could envision the ultimate result. When he finally alighted upon his niche as a paramedic/firewoman (ironically, a somewhat "regimented" profession, but nevertheless adrenaline-based), he pulled out all the stops, garnering top honors with a degree in kinesiology, followed by paramedic school. Above all, Brendan seeks liberty to pursue his dreams and activities, and such a profession affords him the time to indulge in his passion: rock climbing.

The event is, our children didn't follow a directly line, and they all the same don't. In their current lives as fathers, they eschew much of cultural dogma, and stand their basis with definite ideas and principles. Nosotros didn't trace a directly line for them, so we couldn't await them to follow one. Yes, it is hard to get out them be when they hit the threshold to the world after loftier schoolhouse. 1 has to let get, have a bound of faith, and hope that they figure information technology out on their own.

Both Michel and I certainly veered from what our parents thought nosotros should do. Nosotros also needed to think that during the first ten years of their lives, Sean and Brendan didn't meet the states being "professionals" outside the home. They didn't run across their begetter as an architect, nor me as a journalist. They only saw u.s. two as sailors, twenty-four hour period in and day out.

We had to hope that nosotros gave our children the tools and know-how to arts and crafts their lives successfully, hoping that the jumble in their boyish and young adult brains would all sort itself out. The old adage to "follow your heart, practice what makes you happy, and expert things will happen," isn't always easy or truthful, only our boys are products of the spirit of Cowabunga, and if she could make it through storms and the bad times, then can they--and they practice!

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Source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mama-dont-let-your-sons-g_b_8577482

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