Wisdom

Oscar Wilde once said, “With age comes wisdom.” Well, I’d like to know why we can’t have wisdom when we’re young, when we can put it to good use—like when we’re raising our children.

I’m a much better parent to my grandchildren than I was to my children. Of course, I loved them dearly, but I was still trying to figure out adult-ing when I became a mother at the age of 26. Back then, I had no idea what I was doing.

Fortunately, instinct kept me from placing my children in danger. Well, except for the time I securely strapped my three-month-old daughter in her carrier and set it on the kitchen table, so I could prepare supper. As soon as I turned away, she leaned forward and went crashing to the floor. I grabbed her, seat and all, held her to my chest and walked around and around the apartment crying, afraid to look at her. Despite the healthy volume of her screaming, I was sure she had a cracked skull and was bleeding to death.

Then there was the time my son at nine months old managed to pick up a penny from the floor without my noticing. As soon as I laid him on the changing table, he slipped the coin into his mouth and began choking. Like any mother, filled with common sense and wisdom, I panicked and started yelling, “He’s choking, he’s choking!” I shudder to think what would have happened if my husband hadn’t come running and performed the Heimlich on our son.

Miraculously both of our children survived my parenting and turned out to be amazing, wonderful people and excellent parents to our grandchildren. But, I digress.

Imagine a seventeen-year-old girl trying to raise her younger brothers, ages six and eight. Abby, the protagonist of my latest novel, I Want to Go Home, struggles with unexpected poverty and her mother’s alcoholism. Determined to keep her brothers out of foster care, she runs away with them, making decisions that, in her teenage mind, she thinks are wise. She places them and herself in danger and causes them to end up homeless.

I Want to Go Home is scheduled for publication in September. In the meantime, I’m working on a memoir about my childhood growing up on a dairy farm. It doesn’t have a title yet, but each of its short stories focuses on a specific memory from those early years during the 1950s. I think the stories will resonate with my contemporaries, but I hope people of all ages will enjoy reading them. 

        

Cindy L. Freeman is the author of two award-winning short stories and three published novels: Diary in the Attic, Unrevealed and The Dark Room. Coming soon from High Tide Publications: I Want to Go Home. Website: www.cindylfreeman.com; Facebook page: Cindy Loomis Freeman. Her books are available through amazon.com or hightidepublications.com