Your Children Are Not Your Own
A travel agent could not have picked a better place for CBS News Correspondent Steve Hartman to find a story than in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Even though it is a resort town, Hartman found keeping up with 56 year-old Shannon Harrison was no vacation. Harrison starts his day at 4 a. m. and believes in the motto "Work hard. Pray hard." Harrison's wife, Katherine, is a Presbyterian minister. They met growing up in Texas, and have been married 31 years. They have no kids, but they do have one dog, and two fish. You should also know, this isn't the first time Harrison's been on CBS.
He and his father made it on a game show. Here is how their dialogue went on air:
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Harrison: My name is Shannon Harrison.
Host: First time in New York?
Harrison: Yea.
Host: You like it pretty good?
Harrison: Oh it's alright, but I like Texas better.
Harrison was a precocious kid. His mother insisted on it. She forced him read large sections of Compton's encyclopedia - before first grade and told him if he didn't get all A's - he must not love her. And therein lies Harrison’s story.
"You know, love equals accomplishment," says Harrison.
After high school -- she told him he had to go to college. Had to be a doctor and after awhile Harrison had enough.
"I am not doing your thing for you any more. Thank you very much. Goodbye," he recalls saying.
Harrison was just a year away from a degree in pre-med. He dropped out with a perfect 4.0. His new priority was to try and get as far away from his mother as he possibly could, which for a young man in the late '60s was way too easy.
He volunteered for Vietnam as an army medic.
"She was properly horrified," says Harrison.
He was now half a world away, but not far enough.
"I can remember visits from the Red Cross guys saying, 'Please write your mother and get her off our neck’," says Harrison.
"I had convinced myself that I was being made to do something against my will, which was a career in medicine," he adds.
And here's the irony: After all that, Harrison came home - and became a doctor. By all accounts, he's a stellar one. Mom got the son she always wanted, although, she never won him back.
"I don't really miss her. I'm ashamed to admit that," he says.
All parents walk that fine line between pushing their kids and pushing them awayshove too hard or nudge too softly. They leave the nest regardless. But push just right and they also come back.
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