I have had the pleasure of being called "His Mom" for seven years (including pregnancy). If you have little ones who aren't speaking yet you can imagine when your child has their friends over and they say "Umm, So&so's Mom, will you help me with my shoes?" The amazing thing is you become surprised when you actually hear your name called at a kid event.
It's rare that we give children the same admired attention we give well known authors, actors or musicians. But why not? Who's to say those little hands won't do good works for our world and why not treat them in that matter. I decided a long time ago that too soon in life children get told they are not good enough. I wanted to offer a home where they knew they were valuable to us. They were unique and important. But let me be clear we do not lie to our children to benefit them. We try not to lie to our children even white lies. Therefore our son knew at the age of four that Santa was not real and not to tell his friends, that he wouldn't get in half as much trouble for what he did if he was honest about it and how babies do not come out of a mommy's belly unless she needed a c-section.
We encourage him to ask us EVERYTHING but at home or in private. These are what we call "Family Rules." We have explained that every family has them whether they call them that or not. Recently we were at his school and around several families when he stood up and began to announce "Look Mom, we will all go back to this when we die. This is what we are when we die." As he swished dirt between his hands. We also had a conversation about how educating his sisters on tsunamis was not appropriate beach talk (especially because most of Hawaii tourists are Japanese). Were these conversations hard? Are you kidding! Richard and I came from families where we had a one time, "Hope you get all this but make sure not to ask questions" sex talk. Where Santa was used to decorate more than Jesus for Christmas. It was absolutely worth it to see him understand and us be amazed and a bit blushed at times that he could understand.
Children get it, maybe not all of it the first time or even the tenth but they do add to their mental capacity each time you invest in teaching them. I had one of our epic routine doctors appointments where I had to entertain three kids for about an hour WHILE SITTING QUIETLY. The snacks were out, everyone got a sleeve of tattoos (with ink pens of course) then the girls fell asleep. Earlier that day I wondered how many hours I had spent with my son. Well I did the math and out of 26,??? something over the course of six and a half years he has been with me for 23,4??.? That's right he has had less than 4,000 awake hours away from me. I came home showed Richard my scratch paper and his comment was "And that's just with him."
This child's confidence is something you can't shake, not even us. He is strong willed, deep in emotions, full of energy, constantly creating, burning with exploring eyes and a bold voice. Yet if he doesn't feel like talking he simply won't. He's either a 1 or a 10 and what you'd call a doer. We will never have to worry about him finding something to do, just keeping his attention can be a problem. I spend time with him and I learn from him. We have to tell him to go to bed after hours of drawing in costume or in the nude. Yes it's one or the other. We are so thankful for our son to be our son and I am thankful for him to grow to be a man who will do such good in this world.
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