You can't control your childs future

my 56th birthday and my middle son says something that makes me exam some of my core thoughts.

first let me say I would not change my childhood and growing up for anyone's. You could not ask for better parents than my Mom and Dad and I always find myself comparing my parenting skills to theirs.

My dad was in the USAF and we moved around a lot, I loved our life, I saw and done more in my early years than some do in a life time BUT it was hard not having the same friends all the time, as soon as you made a good friend it seemed like you would move and start all over. after a while you didn't try as hard to make friends or when you did you learned to keep them at arms reach. the flip side of that is you build strong bonds with your brothers and learn quick how important family is.

Anyway the point of this post if there is one LOL

When my wife and I decided to have kids I wanted to be sure we were in a home that we wouldn't be moving from, I wanted my sons to NOT move and change schools, I wanted them to have something I didn't have and that was "friends I grew up with" or "someone I know since 1st grade" I have very strong feelings on this but a conversation I had with Nick (middle son) had me thinking about this, not that I would want to do it differently because I still feel strong on it. What he said to me made me look and things different, I have always been focused on how it affected me when I moved away and left friends behind. So I had to rethink this when Nick was telling me how as long as he remembers his friends are always moving away and he doesn't have the best friend he knew all his life because it seems that every time he makes a friend they move! WOW I never thought about that. I have many times wonder what happened to the kids I knew at different schools I always assumed they grew up and had other kids they grew up with, it never crossed my mind that you could live in one place and still end up like me, the person that moved all the time and not have that one best friend you knew all your life.

So here I am rethinking about friends I knew and what happened with them, on one hand I would like to think they made many other "best" friends when I moved but now to be honest I would like to think I was hard to replace.

But it goes to show as a parent you can only do what you thinks best, try to make your kids life better and guard them from harm as much as you can, BUT no matter your best effort there will be outcomes and things you just can't control.