My son was about eight years old when he asked his father if he would build him a tree house. Our house sits on an acre and a half, the back part of which is dense woods leading down to a creek.
My problem with the plan was that any tree that could support a tree house had the structure that would hold it way too high off the ground for my comfort. I could picture my son tumbling out of the treehouse, breaking his neck, shattering his spine or dying instantly on impact. My husband drew up plans for a fort on stilts eight feet off the ground, and after demonstrating to me exactly how high that would be, I agreed.
The two began buying materials, making trips to Home Depot after school. They set posts into the ground, two feet deep at my insistence, and poured concrete into holes, allowing them for set for a couple of days. After school and on weekends, the two would be out in the woods, hammering, sawing and installing a set of pull up attic stairs that my husband found on Craigslist. Flooring was installed, walls put up, windows cut into the sides. When it came time to install the roof, corrugated tin, they needed some help, so they hired a couple of Mexicans to help finish the job.
Now before you get all judgey on me, we live in Texas, and that’s what you do. You hire Mexicans. Most towns will have a place where day laborer’s gather, hoping to pick up work in construction, landscaping, whatever. If you need some work done, trash hauled off or trenches dug you explained to the workers what the work was, how many people were needed and they willingly jumped into your car or truck, eager to make some money. It was a bonus if they spoke English, but not a requirement as you could easily demonstrate what was to be done.
My daughter, showing no interest in the fort, spent her afternoons watching Nickleodeon, keeping up with the antics of Jimmy Neutron, SpongeBob SquarePants, and shows that involved kids living entirely without parental supervision in posh hotels or apartment buildings that had slides between floors.
I was proud of my son’s perseverance. He stuck with it, day after day, never complaining or getting bored. In addition to the construction, there was a story about a squirrel that would come to watch the progress every day, nibbling on acorns and chattering his squirrel comments. I think they named him Sam.
The fort finally finished, my daughter got off the couch and ventured into the woods to inspect “Their ” new fort. Nope. My son declared it a girl free zone, and not only her friends were not allowed, but she was also not allowed in it. This set off a tirade of yelling, whining and declaring boys to be the worst. Of course, she turned to her Daddy and requested a fort of her own.
My husband agreed, but only under the same circumstances that the first fort was built under. She had to participate every step of the way. A site was selected, a lower height decided upon, with a set of simple stairs to walk up. My husband set the posts, the two started to construct the floor, and my daughter began to find excuses to go inside. She had to use the bathroom, she needed a snack, she had to call a friend about an upcoming play date. She could always be found back on the couch watching TV. My husband, who normally would just finish the fort himself, as he was a pushover for his baby girl, stood firm. Either she participated or the fort did not get built. She shrugged it off, and there it sits years later, a stairway and a half finished platform.
These two structures are symbols of the differences in my two children. Born just fifteen months apart, with the same parents, the same life lessons, each remarkably different in their approach to life. My son would study for tests and spend days working on school projects, while my daughter would whip out a paper ten pages long the night before it was due. She didn’t have to give it a lot of effort, and she made good grades, so the idea of putting in unnecessary work made no sense to her. It continued that way through high school in both academics and sports, my son getting up at six a.m. to work out before school to improve his skills in sports, and my daughter sleeping in until the last possible moment, dragging herself to the car where daddy would have breakfast ready & waiting for her.
My son graduated with honors from the University of Oklahoma in the expected timeframe of four years. He now holds a well-paying job at an oil and gas company, and lives on his own enjoying a comfortable lifestyle. My daughter, in her sixth year of college has yet to figure out what it is she is going to do with her degree in Environmental studies. When she is not at school, she is snowboarding, white water river rafting, camping and hiking across Colorado and Utah. She loves her life and is the envy of all of her friends back home, but she seems to always be low on cash and in need of daddy to call the mechanic in her town to come take a look at her car.
Both are remarkable human beings with sweet dispositions, great senses of humor and are incredibly close. I just wonder how they came out so different. I think the answer may lie in astrology, where their personalities and behaviors seem to lie in the stars and was predestined before they even arrived.
The View from my Back Porch 