The water is music that mixes with laughter to become a symphony. Who knew learning could be so fun? Cause and effect are often thought of in consequences, choice weighing, and fears. How often do we just enjoy the concept?
My favorite part of being a parent is how much my children teach me. I've heard of unschooling kids, I've not heard many talk about how they return the favor. When I focus in on what my son is seeing, my mind follows along to take each detail into the realm of fresh consideration.
Strange lake liquid! We don't have water like this at home! He pushes the watering can down, air bubbles escaping up from its previously empty core. He counts them as far as he can, three is impressive when you haven't quite turned two yet!
Then the can is empty once more. He explores its hot-pink depths, will more water come out? He waits, and then remembers that it is him who must fill the vessel.
It's been so long since I took Emory out without his older sister in tow. My best friend joins us with her children; her son is only 6 weeks older than mine. Due to her desire to be anon online, we will call her son Victor, because that boy always seems to win.
Of course, this also means I will not share the photos of the boys playing together. Learning cause and effect, hand in hand. They build sandcastles, then tear them down. A small metal backhoe appears in Victor's hand, "Beep beep beep!" he calls out.
Emory weighs the merits of this new word, and tries it on for size. "Beef" he pronounces proudly, and I let him hold the word in his own hands. Why must I correct every 'mistake', as if they aren't the most important aspect of learning?
Wild schooling is a big process for a natural worrier like myself. I'm a helicopter mom at heart, but I sure don't want to be. Maybe it is my misplaced notion that I can prevent harm, that getting some scrapes isn't that important.
Then I remember my scraped knees, bruised shins, and tiny hands blistered from my own childhood learning. What if someone prevented all of those? Who would I be now?
When I sit with myself and my endless fears under the sun, the wind carries them off for me. My son isn't going to drown because I took off the life vest I briefly made him suffer when we arrived. I'm not only trusting his capabilities now, I am trusting mine. I am strong, smart, and able. I tell myself this, just like I tell my tiny humans. We can handle this.
We aren't living based on fears anymore. A false sense of manufactured security stealing our bliss. We are alive. HERE. Now.
Cause and effect are a joy to those who realize they will be fine, but only if they take the risk. Padding is suffocation when you need to jog.
I've become more brutal with myself, with the world. I'm fairly certain that's love. It definitely is more honest, an acceptance of the nature of humanity. Pain is tied into growth; hardship is the school of the survivor.
For so long I thought that kindness, endless gentleness, was some weapon against the world's wrongs. Now I see it differently; the act of rebellion is through embracing that we can be multifaceted. I've always said that kindness is punk af, I just never saw the dimension in that. It is something that should never be a burden. I've let it become that in many ways.
Micromanaging each of my child's adventures seems like kindness, letting him fall seems brutal. These ideas are flipped in my head, he must fall to truly know how to climb.
I must consider this as I watch Victor and Emory 'fight'. I want to break it up, stop someone from getting hurt. What I need to do is trust that they are in their essence, primal boys who can be redirected, but never changed. It is my job to make sure it does not go too far, to consider how headstrong toddlers are. It should never be my job to stop it happening in the first place.
Both Emory and Victor have the guidance of their mothers, but right now... they are figuring out their own place in this wisdom, this world. To interfere immediately is to tell them that they are not capable of handling their own feelings. Surprisingly? They do just fine.
Why am I surprised? Constantly in awe of how capable my children are, ALL children are, if only we give them the tools and step away. I never knew how passive teaching was.
I learned early on that sometimes a mother's panic hurts worse than the bump itself. A universal signal to a young one that things are bad. Mom is scared? I should be twice as scared then! Freak out initiate!
Perhaps I am now learning how to do the same for myself. To stifle my anxieties one by one. To be adventurous when I want to hide. To remember that you can only be brave when you are afraid (thanks GRRM).
So I escape my imagined future where a water snake has bitten my son, he's cut his foot open on a rock, or some gust of wind has tossed him into the water, far beyond my reach... Why am I like this? Good grief.
My mind is a brutal place, acknowledging that it is a vital part of me is kindness; sitting with these odd thoughts is necessary. The idea that all these dangers become more possible when I try to outmaneuver them swirls in my head.
I stopped and learned through my son's eyes. Exploration shouldn't be hindered by fear.
Baby boy, my beach pal joy. He hands me lessons too large for his hands in my estimation of things, and I revel in the fact that whoever taught me that was wrong. Kids inherently know more than adults ever will. I must not smother that in commonly accepted fallacies.
