Seeing The Big Picture of Parenting

Charisse Tierney provides encouragement to younger mothers by sharing a story about the gifts her oldest child is now bringing to the world. 

“I don’t think my son would have made it through the summer without your son.”  

It was a brief exchange with a fellow drum corps mama, but her gratitude was obvious as she spoke to me.  

It was her son’s first summer with the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corps and my son’s fifth, and last, summer. Drum Corps International (DCI) consists of nearly 50 competitive marching music ensembles. Young people in their teens through age 21 audition for one of the coveted spots in one of the drum corps. Audition weekends are competitive and grueling, but a summer marching drum corps is even more competitive and grueling. Members practice for more than ten hours every day, usually outside in searing heat. They travel from coast to coast and show to show, sleeping on gym floors and in tour buses, eating their meals curbside near the food truck that is part of their traveling caravan.  

They are expected to be at their best at any given moment. Some members are sent home if they don’t consistently meet the DCI standards of performance and behavior, while others go home brokenhearted because they pushed themselves to the point of injury.  

Attachment Grows into Independence  

I’ll never forget dropping my son off for his first summer of this experience. He was my firstborn child. When he was little, I didn’t think he would ever be able to separate from me. I often prayed our decision to attachment parent and treat his wants as needs would help him become a confident and independent young man someday. Sometimes I doubted it would ever happen.  

Then, suddenly, I was watching him walk alone into the school gym where he would spend his first night as a member of the Blue Knights. He carried everything he needed for the whole summer all by himself. Our goodbye hug ended with a clean break into young adulthood. He disappeared into the school, never once looking back.  

I followed him closely that first summer, filling my mother’s heart with videos and photos of him and his corps.  

As one summer turned into two, and two summers turned into three, I got busier with my six other children, handicapped sister, and aging parents.  

By his fifth and last summer, I caught glimpses of him in a photo or video now and then, but didn’t have time to seek them out very often. The son I used to fear would never want to leave my side was now a brass section leader with the Blue Knights. As they traveled the country, I really didn’t know what types of moments made up his daily life.  

I sensed a little piece of my heart out there in the world somewhere, but the rest of my family kept me so busy I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I missed him but was grateful he was so self-sufficient. I pictured him as being a good trumpet player, good marcher, and self-disciplined enough to blend into the corps in the way he was expected.  

Then we arrived for the final show and competition of the season, the Drum Corps International World Championships. The Blue Knights had made it into the ranks of the top twelve corps. We saw the Blue Knights take the field, we felt the blast of the brass, saw the athleticism of their drills, and soaked in their elation of an especially memorable performance, their emotions erupting into spontaneous hugs and tears after the final note was played.  

It’s incredible to see your child execute such a thing on a world stage.  

But even better is to hear about something your child did for the heart of just one other person.  

“He was my son’s bus partner,” the drum corps mama explained the next day at the end of season banquet. “He was so great. It was a tough summer, and he helped my son through.” 

Mothers Shape the World by Shaping Hearts  

I thought my son was just being a good drum corps member. But as one of the directors of the Blue Knights said while presenting him with the Blue Knight of the Year award, “He hasn’t just been a good Blue Knight. He has been the best Blue Knight.” And in the tradition of drum corps, the best don’t just play in tune and step in time. They radiate something that helps each person they encounter be the best they can be. And, one member at a time, the drum corps then becomes the best it can be.  

This is why we mothers are in the business of shaping one heart at a time — so they can then go out and shape one more heart, and that person can go out and shape one more heart — and before you know it, a whole world has been shaped into the best it can be.  

And it all started during those never-ending days of nursing and diapers and cuddling and soothing. It all started during those days that no one ever saw … until that one heart was released into the world. 

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Copyright 2025 Charisse Tierney
Images: (bottom) Canva; all others copyright 2025 Charisse Tierney, all rights reserved.