All children rebel against their family and their parents. I certainly did. I see photos of myself as a teen with hair touching my collar and remember my father telling me over and over again to get it cut. I didn’t, and maybe I didn’t because it bothered him so much. I knew my kids would rebel, too. It was inevitable, and much of it’s been the same over time – hair styles, vocabulary, music, and clothing. These are the signs of rebellion. They have been for a long, long while.
My hope was that my kids wouldn’t show up at home with some tattoo they got out of rebellion that, once they were older, they’d regret. “Wait till you’re older,” I’d say, “when you’re more aware of consequences and can make these decisions smartly.” My daughters wanted multiple ear piercings. “No,” I’d say, “adding extra holes to your body are decisions to made in later days. Not now, as a teen, when impulsiveness runs dangerously high. If that’s what you want to do some day, great, but not now. Wait, please.”
We’ve always been Alabama fans in my house. My mother went to school there. She loved it. She told stories about her sorority days and the night she stood up Joe Namath because she saw him from behind as she was coming down the stairs of her sorority house, and his hair touched his collar. She went back to her room and called downstairs sick. My father went to dental school at the University of Alabama School of Dentistry, which was in Birmingham and eventually became UAB. As kids, we considered it Alabama, though, not in Tuscaloosa. So, our mom and dad went to Alabama in our eyes. I was a fan as a kid, and it passed to my kids. My favorite oldest son goes to school there, and my favorite youngest son will begin there in the fall. They wore Alabama jerseys as children watching the football games in the den in the fall. Auburn has been the butt of jokes for a long time around my house only because it’s our rival, and that’s the way you talk about rivals. I can remember saying that my kids are welcome to go to Auburn, but once they do, they can never come home again. It sometimes got a laugh.
Well, last night, my favorite youngest daughter announced she has committed to attend Auburn University in the fall, and I was elated. I truly was. She’s found a place that she likes and, based on her friends there, a place that likes her. She’s smart, and they like smart people at Auburn. She’s creative and ambitious, and they like those people at Auburn, too. Gone is my bravado about never sending a child to that cow college on the plains and her never being allowed to come home again. She’s breaking a mold, breaking a tradition, carving her own path.
And if this is her rebellion against her family, I’m grateful for it. It’s not bad, not bad at all. In fact, I’m quite proud of it.
I’m Cam Marston, and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.
