The Essential Gift of Childhood

I ran across this essay in The Week (not to be confused with US Weekly, which, of course, I would never read. Ok. Ok. Maybe in the grocery store check-out line.) and I loved it at first read. I cut it out and tacked it to our bulletin board, where I glance at it from time to time. It helps to remind me to embrace this time in my boy's life.

The Essential Gift of Childhood

I believe in my three-year-old son, who is not in the 95th percentile of anything, who did not know his alphabet by his first birthday, who is struggling mightily with shoes and the potty and most social graces. He is truly mournful when leaves fall off the trees in autumn, and he is as gentle and weird and kind as I’d dreamed my child would be. He does not know a second language yet, but he has a magical belly laugh. I believe if I could play a recording of it to warring nations, he would be heralded as an international peacekeeper.

When I was a child in the 1970s, children were woefully unfashionable. Yet, in retrospect, that decade may have been the last time children were allowed some breathing space. We didn’t have to dwell so much on adult preoccupations of trends, fashion, and getting ahead. We could just be children.

I’m not romanticizing my own childhood, because it could be such a brutal, scary time. In my youth, I learned about alcoholism, about mothers who cried themselves to sleep, and about the everyday cruelties classmates inflict on some of us. I do not see childhood in a sepia-toned, idealized way.

This is why I so fiercely guard my son’s youth. In the years before we had hundreds of cable channels, and parents thought their newborns should be baby geniuses, negotiating the often pretty rugged terrain of childhood was our chief concern. I understand that the push for achievement and the pressures we face as parents can be overwhelming. But I believe that I would be robbing my child of an essential gift if I didn’t nurture and protect his youth. The world of playtime and the outdoors is the best laboratory available to my son.

Last week, we were at the playground when I heard a freckled girl in pull-ups call out to her mother from the top of the slide, asking for juice. “Ask me again in French,” said her mother. The girl complied with an impatient eye-roll. At that moment, all I could feel was worry for my child, who is still just getting his feet wet in English, scared that he’d be left behind.

But then I heard my son laughing. He was watching two squirrels chase each other up and down and around a maple tree. “Squirrels are silly,” he said.

Motherhood is a state of always being vulnerable to our expectations and worries about our children. I know that at his core, my son is a happy, free-spirited boy having the childhood he deserves. When I am at my best, I know that there is absolutely nothing to worry about. So at that moment, I forgot about his French-speaking peer and picked my son up, nuzzling those delicious, satiny cheeks, and said “Yes, squirrels are silly.”

I believe in the silliness of squirrels, I believe in my son, and I believe in his childhood.

Marla Rose is a freelance writer and aspiring novelist living with her family in Oak Park, Illinois.

"...I took the one less traveled by..."

Freedom.

         Background: I was born in California. Childhood consisted of happy years roaming a ranch. Teenage years in Idaho. Decided on which college I wanted to attend at a young age. I was encouraged, but never forced to go to college. My parents did everything they could to help me. Got good grades. Enjoyed my classes. Learned a lot. Made a few random friends, but struggled to feel like I belonged (Which wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just a particularly strange time in my life). Struggled with mild depression through some of my teenage years and early adult years. Worked in Alaska the summer before my fourth semester. It was a particularly freeing summer with my childhood pal Christa. We partied, hitch hiked, ran into the ocean naked, hiked the mountains, worked our butts off. We were generally just so happy to be alive, to be experiencing every wonderful minute life had to offer.

Fourth semester I returned to school. Classes began. Life was normal. A few days in, I was sitting in a class and suddenly found myself having a hard time concentrating on what the Professor was saying. I started having this deep and intense feeling of wanting to run. I started thinking, “What am I doing here?! Why am I here?!” My chest felt tight. Looking back I may have been in the beginning stages of a panic attack. Ha. I’m not sure. I kept it together until the class ended. Walking out of there I couldn’t stop the yelling in my head, “What am I doing here?!” I didn’t have an answer. It was then that I realized I couldn’t be there.

Before I did anything I called my parent’s for advice. They were encouraging either way. They knew it had to be my decision. I remember my dad specifically. He said, “No matter what you decide, you are my girl and I love you.” It was a moment when his “live and let live” attitude in life meant a lot to me. I let his words sink down deep and I knew he would love me and even be proud of me whether I worked at a gas station my whole adult life or if I became a doctor and traveled overseas to save people’s lives. His love and acceptance was the same. I hope I am able to give my boys the same. This kind of love frees people to pursue their heart’s truest desires; not out of insecurity or the need to be defined.

Upon hanging up I felt even more sure that I had to go. Where? It didn’t matter. Right then too. I walked into admissions and said I was withdrawing from school and I wanted my money back. I might have looked a little crazy, with tears still in my eyes and a huge grin on my face. The lady didn’t even try to convince me otherwise. Maybe she suspected I was pregnant or a relative was dying. . . She wrote me a check for what I had paid that semester, minus a chunk of it. I signed paperwork, got some signatures, returned books . . . It took a couple of hours at the most.

I drove away from campus.

FREE.

I called my childhood pal, Christa (the one that had joined me in Alaska) and she said that that was the bravest thing she had ever heard of. I was so glad she understood it. Not many other people would, but she did. (Luckily, she did not withdraw from college and now has a Ph.D. in Audiology. I could not be more proud for her!) Looking back, it’s possible even my parents were more worried then they let on, but they were supportive all the same.

I took my hard earned money and went on a road trip; to see Christa in California. It was a fun two weeks, but it turned out we were in different places in life now. She was still in school and I was a distraction. And that was ok. I went back to Boise. And lived. Wildly. Maybe a little too wildly.
I continued learning. My short college career instilled a love of learning that I only ever had glimpses of in high school. (Yes. The following is bragging.) I wrote a huge bucket list. I read textbooks. Literature. I taught myself the game of chess (which I was killer at against an amateur opponent). I read the bible in it's entirety. I researched photography. I wrote. I dreamt of travel. I watched people. I read self-help books. I wrote long lists of possible careers. I learned the love and art of Coffee (thank you Starbuck's). I dreamed of walking out the front door, sticking out my thumb, and disappearing for a time (Into the Wild style, minus the end.) I started to realize the wealth of knowledge to be found everywhere, especially in my parent's (gasp). Part of me remained convinced I would return to college within a few years at the most. I still wasn't totally comfortable with the idea of just not having a college degree. Cultural pressure can be hard to let go of.
I met and fell in love with my husband during this unlikely time. We traveled and traveled. And then we had babies. And I have never regretted a second of it. It seems that that summer in Alaska I rediscovered my deep thirst for freedom and in that moment in the classroom it was confirmed: I would never be able to live a life out of line with my own heart again. And that’s what I have been doing ever since. Going from singleness to married with babies never felt like “settling” to me. We are just continuing the adventure.

Our first week. My future husband.

Initially I wasn’t embarrassed of not having a degree. Most people my age didn’t have one and it still felt socially acceptable to flounder, to figure oneself out. As the years passed and my class graduated I certainly started to feel self conscious that I didn’t possess what most other people I knew had. Maybe I will someday go back to school, but this time it will be with a sense of purpose. It will be because I truly believe in what I’m doing.

After getting married, I stumbled upon being a house painter, which in turn led me to owning my own painting business. It was a very valuable experience. One that I have since put on hold to be with my boys, which, it turns out, is my deepest desire.

I will, of course, encourage my boys to go to college, but I will also encourage them to think bigger. They can do whatever they want in life. Education is important. But more important than the facts you know or the degree(s) you earn, is the love of learning and reading and the ability to think! That can’t always be purchased.

What I wish for my boys, even more than an education or successful careers: The confidence to, “. . .keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . . trust yourself when all men doubt you . . .”(Rudyard Kipling ‘If’) I hope they will know great wisdom. And deep compassion. And happiness. I hope they possess creativity. Curiosity. Spontaneity. Bravery. WILDNESS! Beautiful wildness. And most of all Love. Earthshattering, unconditional love. I want them to live a life that their hearts align with. Some may consider these “soft subjects”, but what I have discovered in my 28 years is: they may be soft in that they are difficult to define, but they are the core of Life. Without them success and education amount to nothing.

There would certainly be benefits to having stayed and completed my degree. Mainly that I wouldn’t feel insecure about not having a degree, I would be more knowledgeable, and I would be a better writer. But I would have sacrificed something fundamental. I would have settled. I don’t think I would be in the same place I'm in today if I hadn’t made the Bravest decision I knew how. This is not written to say this is for everybody, or for anybody really. This is just my story.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

                        ~Robert Frost ‘The Road Not Taken’

The adventure continues.