{"id":969,"date":"2018-03-25T13:31:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-25T13:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/?p=969"},"modified":"2018-07-25T13:34:56","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T13:34:56","slug":"editorial-the-labor-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/2018\/03\/25\/editorial-the-labor-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: The Labor of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Megan Pan ’18<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In the past few weeks, we\u2019ve had the chance to\u00a0hear some excellent speeches about parenting. At the\u00a0LeBow Competition, Jonathan Chen (V) talked about\u00a0his parents\u2019 \u201cendless love and endless support\u201d and\u00a0urged us to \u201cthank those who support you,\u201d while at\u00a0last week\u2019s Morning Meeting, Mr. Keating shared stories about his own parents and encouraged us to \u201cpay\u00a0attention to how your parents are raising you.\u201d Even\u00a0Mr. Andrew Onimus, in his presentation at the Carver\u00a0Lecture, emphasized the support he received from his\u00a0parents in his struggle with mental illness. Spurred by\u00a0their example, I\u2019d like to take the time now to pen atribute to my own parents<\/p>\n

Since before even I was born, both of my parents\u00a0commuted every day to work in the city. Sometimes\u00a0if I woke up early enough, I could hear from down the\u00a0hall the rustling sounds of my parents getting ready in\u00a0the morning.<\/p>\n

Nestled underneath the warm covers, I listened\u00a0through a semi-conscious, sleep-clouded haze to the\u00a0sound of water striking tile in the shower like keys of\u00a0a typewriter, the crisp click of my mother\u2019s high heels\u00a0and the swift zip of a jacket, and finally the distant roar\u00a0of the car ignition growing ever fainter as my parents\u00a0drove off into the dawn. As I heard but never saw my\u00a0parents in the mornings, these sounds were the only\u00a0confirmation that my parents did in fact exist prior to\u00a0six in the evening and did not simply materialize every\u00a0night out of thin air, complete with work-weary faces\u00a0and the perfume of the commuter train.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it was anything but an unhappy life.\u00a0The many grown-ups who watched over me during the\u00a0day treated me kindly, and there was no shortage of\u00a0love on the part of my parents either. But even if I can\u00a0say that now, looking back in retrospect, I can\u2019t deny\u00a0that there were times during my childhood life when I\u00a0simply felt that something was different.\u00a0Not missing, necessarily, not wrong either\u2014just\u00a0different. In the eyes of a young child learning to\u00a0observe the world around her, the small inconsistencies\u00a0between other families and hers must have imprinted themselves in her mind; a quick kiss planted on a reluctant cheek in the morning carpool line, a lunch box complete with sandwich and sticky note lovingly packed, a pair of arms outstretched in greeting, waiting at the door\u2014she must have circled them in her\u00a0memory as if they were objects in a game of spot the\u00a0difference.<\/p>\n

My parents\u2019 love felt like the light of the sun\u2014brilliant, warm, and vividly palpable, but ultimately exer- cised through the physical barrier of distance. However, I never felt any resentment towards them, even as\u00a0a child. In fact, it is as a result of their absence in my\u00a0childhood that I believe I am able to better appreciate\u00a0them now. As opposed to being something that is taken\u00a0for granted, their presence is something that is alive\u00a0and dynamic, like a flower wriggling its roots through\u00a0the dirt or a fire breathing smoke through its embers. Throughout the years of my development, I have\u00a0grown up and become increasingly independent. One\u00a0by one, the adults who had watched over and cared for\u00a0me as a child have let go of my hand, and I have since\u00a0stepped forward to join them in line as a fledgling adult\u00a0myself. The responsibility for my own well-being has\u00a0now fallen squarely on my shoulders with no one else\u00a0to lead me.<\/p>\n

That is, with the exception of my parents. Even now\u00a0when I\u2019m expected to be able to walk on my own, my\u00a0parents still remain by my side and serve as a source of\u00a0guidance and support. But unlike the child for whom\u00a0the surrogate love of others eclipsed the solitude she\u00a0felt, I have since learned to become receptive to my\u00a0parents\u2019 love in every form that it takes.<\/p>\n

In parting, I would like to urge members of the\u00a0Pingry community\u2014adults as well as adolescents- to\u00a0remember their parents and to be forgiving of them. If\u00a0there is anything in my perception of my parents that\u00a0has changed from childhood, it is that I have learned\u00a0that they are fallibly, beautifully human, subject to the\u00a0same emotions, desires, and fears as we all are.\u00a0The true strength of my parents\u2019 love manifests\u00a0itself in its endurance. Throughout all this time, it has\u00a0never wavered or faltered\u2014instead growing to overcome any barrier in its way, like vines of ivy winding\u00a0their way upward, ever upward in search of sunlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Megan Pan ’18 In the past few weeks, we\u2019ve had the chance to\u00a0hear some excellent speeches about parenting. At the\u00a0LeBow Competition, Jonathan Chen (V) talked about\u00a0his parents\u2019 \u201cendless love and endless support\u201d and\u00a0urged us to \u201cthank those who support you,\u201d while at\u00a0last week\u2019s Morning Meeting, Mr. Keating shared stories about his own parents and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[65,11],"tags":[14,13],"class_list":["post-969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","category-opinion","tag-editorial","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":970,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions\/970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}