We think about how Beckett chats with people in the line at the grocery as though he’s running for mayor, and we laugh at how I can take him to his yearly well-checks and barely get a word in edgewise with the pediatrician. We wonder whether or not we should make him play a spring sport if he’s not interested.
We marvel at the way Oliver prefers tinkering in the kitchen cabinet to playing with blocks and knows just how to tell us just what he wants with so few words. We worry about the ways Covid has prevented him from getting the socialization he needs.
And, these things matter, they do. We reflect on these things because we know our kids are these curious little puzzles that we are trying to build, but we don’t have the picture on the front of the box to guide us. We don’t even have all the pieces. We know they are going to change a million times in their lives, but I do believe we already have a glimpse of who they truly are. And, like a puzzle where we find the corner pieces or the patterns first, we also start with that in parenting.
I couldn’t help but think about that this week when Beckett and I read Shark Lady by Jess Keating and illustrated by Marta Álvarez Miguéns. This incredible picture book tells the true story of Eugenie Clark, an Asian-American scientist that spent her entire life studying sharks. From the time she was a very young girl with her nose pressed to the plexiglass at the aquarium, she wanted to study sharks, to uncover all she could about them. She followed that calling her entire life, ignoring limits that the world kept trying to place on her. As an adult, she made ground-breaking discoveries about sharks.
Dr. Clark’s amazing life story reminded me that it’s not my job to make my kids play soccer or play with the blocks labeled “for two-year-olds.” It’s my job to notice the puzzle pieces with their nose pressed to the plexiglass looking at the sharks.
#womenshistorymonth
#sharklady
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