Before having children, it’s normal to have views of what you think your kids will be like based on standard heteronormative societal beliefs. These visions often include the superstar athletic son and the daughter who happily wears bows in her hair and allows you to pick out her outfits. Once you become a parent, you quickly find out children aren’t cookie cutters and they’re going to have their own interests.
Understanding that kids aren’t going to be exactly like you envisioned is easy but allowing them to become themselves isn’t always as simple as it sounds. I’ll start with my son. My husband and I were both athletic, multiple-sport-playing children. Every new sport season, we offer to sign our son up for a team and he politely declines. He goes through phases at home where he is really into a sport for a while but has zero interest in playing on a team at this time. This kills my husband a little bit, but it isn’t something we press.
My son’s interests lie in the sciences. If you would have asked me five years ago if I would be able to tell you details about animals or name more than five dinosaurs, I would have laughed at you. Now I spend my free time hearing about how orangutans are critically endangered due to deforestation and how megalodons once ruled the darkest parts of the ocean. He watches so many National Geographic videos that he has shortened to just say “Geographics” when he talks about them. When you ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, he proudly says that he wants to be a DJ living in New York City and has recently picked a performer name of “Way Back West.”
My daughter typically takes her bows out as soon as I get them in her hair. She will only wear clothes if she picks them out and they never match. Today, she wore pajamas with an additional shirt over the top, red ruffle socks and her brother’s Buzz Lightyear tennis shoes. She screams and runs from me if I try to take a picture of her. Her favorite phrases are currently “that’s mine” and “baby Jesus”. This girl has a lot going on, and I have zero control. The more I try to gain control, the more psychotic she becomes. We’ve gotten to the point where my husband gets her “dressed” in the morning because it’s easier to blame this questionable fashion style on him than admit that I’m conceding to the ridiculousness.
It’s hard. It is so hard not to wrestle my daughter to the ground to enforce a coordinating outfit. It’s hard not to sign my son up for sports and say, “you have to play because we already paid for it”. But, doing these things would be trying to force my kids into the boxes I thought they’d come in. We can’t put people in boxes, especially children.
By allowing my children to make their own creative decisions, we’re doing a lot of good for their future. We are allowing them to express themselves. We’re allowing them to find things that truly interest them and most importantly, we’re setting them up for a life where their thoughts aren’t always “what will my parents think about this?”
My main goal as their mom is to allow them to express themselves without fear of my judgement. I want to be part of their genius, I want to be the reason they say they had the confidence to make mistakes and try new things.
My biggest fear prior to having children was failure. Since having kids, fear of failure rounds out my top three fears in life. I don’t want my kids to have that. I want my kids to see failure not as a negative thing, but as a tool for growth. It starts by handing over creative control to them.
As always, do good things.
Jo is a Mess 