This is yet another lovely drawing by my three year old. While you may be impressed that she can draw eyes and a mouth and a body at such a tender young age, don't get carried away with any precious feelings. This is a picture of a vampire.
How on earth does she know anything about vampires?? What have I done wrong?? I tend to blame birth order and the fact that she is simply exposed to what the older kids are saying. I tip toe into the preschool classroom filled with first borns hoping my daughter's, "Thanks, yo," has not caught on. From the car seat behind me, I hear, "CRAP, I forgot something!" I try to monitor the TV at home so that we are only watching "Finley" shows, but it creeps in. It all creeps in.
And you know what the kicker is? I don't think birth order even matters that much. She's a wild one, she just has that look in her eye, that twinkle that says, "I'm trouble, just you wait and see." She's got moves, I'll tell you, moves that come from within, and its just part of who she is. And I can't stop it.
I see this play out at work every day.
Sometimes our kids do not turn out the way we would hope. They love hard core music. They don't love science. They are only into reading, all the time. They are obsessed with the Lord of the Rings. They won't wear dresses. They will only wear dresses. How do we accept these realities and manage our own feelings of fear and disappointment? Because that's a big part of it. You were hoping for an athlete and you got a magic card player and you might be a little heartbroken that you will never share the bond that you hoped you would with your child. Or you might be fearful of how this will play out in their future. Will they make friends? Will they fall in love? Will they be accepted or ridiculed or unemployable? In my case, I thought I had a delicate ballerina and seem to have a Dallas Cowboy's cheerleader. How do you support when your instinct is to cringe? At any rate, it is your loss and its about you.
Except that kids aren't about us. They are their own people. Our expectations can be about behavior but they have no bearing on personality. We can raise them with values instilled, but we cannot chose what they like and dislike. The bottom line, however, is that kids want to please their parents. That is a rule of the universe that transcends all gender, race, ethnicity, and cultures. We all want our parents to be proud of us. To be delighted in our presence. To be glad we are around.
They will one day talk about how much we disappoint them. We were not ambitious enough or did not spend enough time with them. We were difficult to please or difficult to talk to. We meant well but...Its sort of the same thing. We disappoint them, too. We're all just human.
One thought is to think ahead. Think to the long term. How might this current trait that is so mortifying or crushing be ultimately a good thing? Does the wild teenager find wisdom and enjoy a more mature decade in their 20's? Does the sports avoidant emerge with their brain fully intact? Does the C student do a wonderful job caring for their friends and being in the moment? Does the Hobbit find great attention to detail that will allow them to be highly successful at work? What might their lives turn out like? At 30? At 50? What are the positive traits that your child possesses that will be an asset to their relationships in the future? Will they ultimately be happy people?
Just as we have to accept our own parents for all of their quirks, just as we accept and appreciate our partners, we must love and find delight in all that our children are. They are their own people and deserve our praise for that alone.
