Arta meditates on learning from one's parents, and learning from one's children

Lynn Ursenbach reported that the topic for the Relief Society meeting was "What have you learned from your mother?"

Great question. 

This question got taken up in the Harvard Study of Adult Development, as reported in George Vaillant's book, Aging Well.  

Arta started reading this book several years back on the recommendation of her friend Omar Kader, during a lunch conversation when he and his wife Nancy Kader visited Arta during Calgary Stampede time!   Yee hah! [for a lovely interview with him about Palestine, see this link: https://kennedy.byu.edu/omar-kader/]

Arta loved it so much that she encouraged me to get my own copy, so that we could talk about it.  It certainly raises interesting questions about what it means to live a good life over the different time periods that creep up on us.  

Here, Arta reflects on the question Lynn posed, but reversed.  That is, what does it mean to reflect not simply on what one could learn from one's parents, but also what one could learn from one's children. A question asked with less frequency, but one that is very significant.

Here is a 5 minute response to that question.

She and I agreed that if one is living a really full life, one should be able to provide additional answers to this question every day.   I look forward to seeing what other things she comes up with, because I am certain that I have provided her with many occasions for learning, and that my siblings have done so as well.  Now, we get to test her to see how well her lessons were learned!