Let the juices flow

Up a tree

Marilyn blogged on Friday about looking back at a childhood picture of herself and seeing what that little girl was like---and trying to get back to a little bit of that. This spun, in her comments section, into a discussion on how sometimes parents can be the driving force behind squelching creative drive in kids as they grow up.

I must say that as a parent I'm a little bit in the opposite direction. I'm a little too nurturing---and I guess I can be a little overwhelming at times. So my job is to work on settling down and gently encouraging. In the comments the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer" is mentioned as an example of seeing potential in a child very young. Interestingly enough, that's one of my favorite movies---and it's also the metaphor that my wife always brings up when I start getting a little hyper about getting the kids into lessons or training or something over a talent I think I see showing itself. You see, in the movie the father, after recognizing that his son is a chess genius, goes nuts getting him tons of instruction and pushing him to tournaments all over. Until, in the end, he needs to help his son find that place where chess was fun again so the son can play to the best of his abilities.

Wisely, my wife keeps coaxing me back to a place where we can be supportive without taking the fun out of it.

An example is my 3rd child---my 6 year old who we call the little Lemur. And that name is very appropriate---he makes weird noises ALL the time and constantly leaping around and flipping off the walls and making people laugh. Sometimes I think he's never happier than when he's flying through the air in some kind of weird pose. And of course, he's constantly giving us heart-attacks as we witness a calm moment instantly transform into a potential trip to the emergency room right before our very eyes ---all the time.

A while back, he saw Bill Irwin (best know in our house as Mr. Noodle from Sesame Street) on Great Performance on PBS. Bill Irwin was performing a one man Broadway show where he brings his signature style of vaudevillian "Chaplinesque" performance to the stage. And my wife relats how she saw right then, as he watched, that he knew what he wanted to be.

Of course I would have sent him to clown college immediately, but I controlled myself. Plenty of time for that. In the meantime I have been trying to probe him to see if there would be something that he would be interested in that would keep him flexible and aware of his body and how to use it----like dance or gymnastics. But strangely enough, he doesn't want to have any of that. At least not now. Maybe someday. And then I'll be so happy to cheer him on.

You won't see a prouder father than me when someday I'm standing in a group of parents with grown children, and we're all talking about their lives as lawyers and doctors, and I get to say "Yeah, well my son falls down for a living! But not only that, he makes funny noises when he does it!" I look forward to that with relish.

For right now, I just have to keep him from killing himself so he can get to that point.

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