Welcoming Surprise
September 15, 2022 § 3 Comments
As a parent, one of the things I continue to wrestle against is the temptation to label my children, to fit them inside tidy little boxes for the sake of proving (to the world? to myself?) that I’ve got everything figured out. On the one hand, of course I know my kids aren’t some puzzle begging to be solved; on the other hand, everywhere we turn as parents, we’re being asked to declare our children’s interests, to commit to one sport at the exclusion of others, to sum up their personalities for new teachers or turn them into soundbites for small talk with other parents.
If we’re talking labels, then my son is a math and science kid. Has been for a long time. He will tell you his plan is to be a rocket scientist for NASA, and he will steer almost every conversation at the dinner table back to whatever launch attempt has been in the news that day. As parents, all we want is for our kids to find something they love, so phew, let’s check that box and call it a day.
But wait. What about his eye for color and design? His love of drawing photo-realistic animals on birthday cards? What about the fact that he was the first one in our family who could handle our traumatized puppy, the first one to leash him and teach him tricks? What about his love for Anne of Green Gables that (almost) rivals mine?
What else might I miss by boxing him in?
Though he has an indisputable aptitude and passion for math and science, his favorite class last year was actually history, a class comprised of reading, writing, and public speaking. He has an obsession with current events that grew out of stress-induced vigilance but has morphed into a fascination with politics and economics. He has loved swimming, then hated it, loved running, now finds his interest depends on the day. He used to wince when a soccer ball flew at him, but last year I watched as he ran straight into the action on the basketball court, so maybe my telling people for years that, “yeah, he doesn’t like contact sports,” wasn’t actually true.
Will he grow up to become a rocket scientist? Quite possibly. Might he grow up to do any number of things seemingly incongruous with that goal? Quite possibly. All I know is that the more I can get out of the way, the freer he is to be open to possibility. And to surprise those of us along for the ride.
Easier said than done. That’s why we need frequent, insightful reminders.
You are more than a single note—
played again and again.
You are a symphony.
You are sounds plucked from all the places you’ve been
and all the people you’ve met
and all the feelings you’ve felt.
You are blues and pinks and loneliness and laughter,
mismatched scraps accumulated over time
and stitched together
into a kind of patchwork.
These resounding words come near the end of Patchwork (Ages 5-10), a stunning collaboration between two of our family’s favorites: Matt de la Peña (of Last Stop on Market Street) and Corinna Luyken (remember when I interviewed her here?). A paean to self-discovery, the book speaks to the capacity of children to change. Even as it highlights six specific children’s experiences, the second-person narration feels universal: the “you” is at once the child pictured in a pink tutu and the young reader studying her on the page.
Earlier this month, I read the book to my own children, despite them being well outside the target age, and I watched as a kind of peace settled around them. “What did you like about the book?” I asked. My daughter was quick to say she liked Corinna’s choice of a different color for each of the children’s stories (something I’ll talk more about in a bit).
My son took longer to think. Finally, he spoke: “I liked the way the children were always surprising the adults.”
In its invitation to witness and celebrate the surprises of self-discovery, Patchwork succeeds in both affirming the curiosity our children already know to be inside them and reminding those who love them to make room for that curiosity.
« Read the rest of this entry »Going Forth with Love
January 25, 2018 § 1 Comment
I heard a story shortly before the holidays which I haven’t been able to get out of my head. It was from an associate who serves with me on the Capitol Choices Committee. Normally, in our monthly meetings, we are all business: we get in, we debate that month’s new titles, and we get out. But, at the end of our December meeting, this librarian asked to deliver a few personal remarks. She told us how she had been in New York City the weekend prior (funny enough, so had I) and had been walking on Sunday evening to Penn Station for her train home. It was blustery, growing colder by the minute, and the streets were still dusted with the previous day’s snow. About half a block ahead of her was a man. She described him as middle-aged, well-dressed in a dark wool overcoat, and carrying a briefcase. Keeping pace behind him, she watched as the man suddenly took off his coat, draped it over a homeless man sitting in a doorway, and kept walking. All without missing a beat. « Read the rest of this entry »
The Bravest Kind of Kindness
June 11, 2015 § 2 Comments
“Kindness” has become a buzz word across parenting literature of late. Are we teaching our children to be kind? How do we go about raising kind children? How can we prevent “bullying” on the playground or “mean girls” at play dates?
And yet, for all the lip service we keep giving to the importance of kindness, a recent study found that as many as 80% of youth reported that their parents seemed “more concerned with their achievement or happiness than whether they cared for others.”
I find reports like this deeply unsettling, although they’re not entirely unsurprising. After all, kindness can be really hard stuff. It’s one thing to remember a relative’s birthday; to hold the door open for a stranger; to put an arm around a friend who is crying. Undeniably, these are all kind gestures. But it is quite a different thing to put someone’s deepest needs before our own; to step outside our comfort zone; to imagine ourselves in another’s shoes and, in the process, open up our hearts to the potential for understanding, connection, and forgiveness. Stretching the limits of kindness—this is when the real magic happens.
In his gorgeously illustrated and deeply feeling new picture book, The Song of Delphine (Ages 4-8), Kenneth Kraegel tells an unforgettable story of a child’s courageous act of kindness in the face of adversity. It’s an act that not only dramatically changes the course of the two lives in the book, but has the power to transform the reader as well. « Read the rest of this entry »
Best Kind of People Watching
March 26, 2015 § 3 Comments
Growing up in New York City, my preferred mode of transportation was always the bus. It didn’t matter whether I was going twenty blocks or a hundred blocks. I loved the noises: the lurch as we pulled over every two blocks to stop; the hiss as the bus lowered down to let people off. I loved the creeping pace, which allowed me to stare up at the buildings towering above, or down at the crowds of shoppers swarming the sidewalks. Most of all, I was transfixed by the cross-section of people squeezed in around me, some conversing with their neighbors, others plugged into headphones. Each person had a story that I could only guess at. And each bus displayed an unpredictable amalgamation of skin colors, clothing, smells, sizes, and languages.
Ride a New York City bus for long enough, and there’s nothing you don’t see. It’s like having your finger on the pulse of life. I would feel at once safely nestled into my community and distinctly vulnerable to the uncertainty of what might happen next.
You can imagine my dismay when I discovered, on a weekend trip to NYC with my son, that he does not innately share my enthusiasm for bus travel. En route from 96th to 12th street, it didn’t take long (in his defense, our bus did seem to be stalling more than moving) before JP looked at me with exasperation—and, frankly, puzzlement.
“This is taking forever! Why aren’t we taking the subway?” « Read the rest of this entry »
What to Read to Your Kids 