Every day our youngest daughter runs around the house pushing a stroller full of 13 or 14 babies. The babies don't look at all comfortable -- their arms are twisted around their necks, their legs are bent under them and their heads rest awkwardly on their shoulders as the heads of toy dolls with no bones tend to do. She covers them in a blanket and gives as many of them as she can given her short supply of bottles, some "milky" to drink as they walk to the movie theater she's imagined in the corner of our kitchen.
They don't look comfortable, but they do look loved.
It's amazing to watch her do this, talking to them all with her head tilted slightly to one side the way parents sometimes talk when we're trying to get a point across lovingly. As a parent, it's hard not to look at the present and not think "I wish she would stay like this forever."
She's:
- happy
- with us
- away from danger
- in love with her body
- making us happy
- nowhere near done.
I understand the "don't ever grow up," sentiment. For me I don't know if it's more about seeing them free from the influences of the word that could make them hate their bodies, hate other people's bodies or just feel generally lonely or about them simply being alive. I fear death and when I watch my kids play, I see life. Do I want to freeze that moment because of their happiness or because they're simply alive?
We don't get the chance to figure this out of course, because kids do continue to age even as we utter that sentence to them. And beyond the obvious that it's nice to see them keep moving, our kids getting older instead of staying the same is a very good thing.
The present holds power over the future because of its absolute certainty. But the future holds potential, and nothing makes me more excited about my children than their potential.
I want to know how badly you're going to scrape your knees when you learn how to ride your bike. I'll probably want you to stay that age for a while too.
Until I start to wonder what your favorite subject in school is going to be and whether you'll like what I liked or whether I'll get to experience someone falling in love with a subject I never could. As I watch you do homework one night, I'll probably wish you would stay that way forever.
But then I'll think about whether or not you'll go to university or start your own business and I'll imagine you on the front page of my favorite website, lauded as a revolutionary thinker. So I'll screenshot that page and wish it could always be that way.
And one day you will leave our house and I'll try to bravely wave as we drive away from your box-filled place and my tear-filled eyes will probably make me stop on the side of the road only a hundred meters or so away from where I waved. And I'll think about how much you've grown and wish it could always be like this.
But then you'll tell me you met someone you love and want to spend the rest of your life with. And we'll talk and laugh and we'll probably also cry. And we'll talk about that person and how special they are to you and I'll tell you how special you are to me. And I'll let you know that it will be that way forever.
And maybe something more will happen from there. Maybe you'll both go to work every day happy that you met one another. Or maybe the two of you will tour the world together. Maybe you'll make a scientific breakthrough that the world stands up and cheers for. Or maybe you'll just stay home and watch your little kid push her babies around in a stroller with those babies looking altogether miserable.
And maybe you'll smile at her and wish she's stay like that forever.
We'll have to wait and see.