My breath caught at the sight of the bright flags piled near the gym wall. A few girls were already spinning and tossing the aluminum-poled silks. Instinctively my body reacted to the sharp thwap of fabric slicing air,  hands itching to join the movements. Suddenly I was 15 again, standing in the early morning haze in my high school parking lot, practicing back-scratchers and butterflies.

Behind me, my daughter hesitated in the gym door. That should have been my first clue.

When she asked to sign up for color guard camp my mind had immediately aged her nine years and dressed her in a uniform. It marched her across the high school football field, willing her to twirl a flag with finesse. Maybe she would become color guard captain too.

But as the weeks of camp went by, her enthusiasm waned – never mind that mine didn’t. In our back yard I demonstrated throws and coached her on spins. “No, left hand upside down. Like this,” I would say. But she turned her back instead of her hand, shielding her actions from my view.

Once camp finished and she marched in our city’s Labor Day parade, my daughter retired her flag. And I re-shelved my color guard memories with a sense of disappointment.

What I had needed in that moment in the gym was a bucket list – a set goals I could work on apart from my daughter.

Because creating individual bucket lists encourages us as parents to separate our personal ambitions from those of our children. We hover less when we have more than just our children’s activities and futures to focus on.

You see, sometimes we inadvertently pressure our children to finish what we started in our youth. We remember the thrill of crossing the finish line first and urge our kids to follow in our footsteps as runners, hoping they will get the state title we never did.

Or we lean on them to take the path we didn’t. At the slightest sign of interest in the field of education, we push them to become a teacher, hoping for them live out the career we bypassed because our own parents coaxed us into a lucrative profession.

Or we urge them to take up pastimes that allow us to relive our favorite parts of days gone by. Like joining the color guard.

We don’t always do these things on purpose or even knowingly. It’s easy to view our desire for our children to achieve certain goals or pursue specific careers as merely an expression of our support of their natural abilities. But when those accomplishments or that career shows up on our bucket list and not theirs, we learn to think twice. Our error becomes more apparent.

With a bucket list in front of you, you get to go back and try again for the missed glory of your youth. You’re a former frustrated runner? Then winning a 5K might figure prominently for you. If you listed “teacher” as your dream profession when you were a child, it might be time to see where you can volunteer your teaching skills or how you might go back to earn that degree.

In the meantime, while you pursue your own dreams, your children are freed from the obligation to live them out for you. And they can go after their own achievements, with your genuine support.

It won’t matter so much whether they like twirling a flag or not, because you no longer need to circle over the memories of bygone days. You’re landing that helicopter and heading out on new adventures.

Have you ever caught yourself living vicariously through your children? What’s on your bucket list that you were hoping to see your kids accomplish?

Photo credit: Floating by prayitno on Flickr via CC License