Another son is getting married this weekend, and my wife and I spent some time going through old pictures for a slide show. It was a great joy to remember innumerable events of his childhood. It is easy to look back and remember the many happy, fun times. Years removed from the day-to-day living, it is not difficult to count the blessings. It is a little harder to do when we are in the thick of things, when life is difficult, and things aren’t going according to plan.

In times of challenge, it is easy to get overwhelmed. Raising a family is not easy. Children are a major burden, especially at a time when young people are just getting established and finances are on shaky ground. Children are a never-ending source of frustration, challenging young parents’ abilities in areas for which most of them are not naturally suited or adequately trained. Sibling rivalries can fray the nerves and disrupt the peace at the most inconvenient times.

If rearing children is such a burden, then why do people do it? Why would people voluntarily take on a lifelong and life changing responsibility for which they will have to pay dearly? It may have something to do with our natural hard-wired programming for the continuation of the species, but it is likely that other factors are also at work. As we grow up, we experience other children, other families and other parents. It is obvious that there is something about family life that is not bad, not burdensome and not overwhelming. Families can have fun. Families can learn together, grow together, and flourish together. Family members help each other and support each other. Even when teenagers say they hate each other, they are merely venting a frustration at not having the maturity to understand human relationships. Fortunately, they do get beyond that stage. There is actually a bond of love beneath the biting words, a bond which can flourish if they learn the right lessons.

Our lives are a series of lessons. We respond to the events presented to us. We make choices and learn from them. The result of each decision is the feedback which helps us learn about the way people, society, and the world around us work and respond to us and our actions. The results help us to integrate our lives with those of others, to learn what we need to do to reach the goals we set. The feedback is a very individual phenomenon. You learn your own lessons. They cannot be imposed by others. Others cannot experience for you. Others cannot live your life. Others cannot get the feedback that you get because they have not seen and felt and lived what you have. They do not have the goals that you have. They do not have the assumptions or perspective on reality that you do.

Individual goals and feedback from personal choices are some of the reasons that central planning for an entire society has not, will not, and cannot be successful. It is the imposition of choices of the planner on others who live under different circumstances, want different things and experience different results. Planners cannot possibly know everything that all of the individuals know. They cannot possibly make the right decisions for millions of people because they cannot know what the right decisions are. They can only impose an average decision, which is necessarily the wrong decision for the vast bulk of society.

The function of learning within a family is to enable growing children to experience life while shielded from many of the risks inherent in the real world. As children grow, they are capable of taking more responsibility. They require and, in fact, demand less shielding. That is one of the difficulties of being a parent; learning to balance risk and ability, recognizing when it is time to let go of more of the life you have been protecting and nurturing. Children do grow up. There comes a point when, hopefully, the children are mature enough to make their own decisions.

I am proud of my son for being able to make his own decisions, for accepting responsibility for his life. I am happy for him and his wonderful bride, as they go forth as a new family, accepting all of the responsibilities, the frustrations and, the overwhelming joys of learning, living and choosing their way together. They are among the many blessings that I can count in my life.