This
evening while we were brushing teeth before bed, I mentioned that our bathroom
scale didn’t seem to be working. Here’s the conversation that followed:
Halen:
Oh, maybe we could take it apart and make it into something else! . . . We
could program it to be a robot or something.
Me: I
don’t know much about programming.
Halen:
Maybe I could make a download for it. Can you make a download for me?
Me: I
don’t know how to make a download for programming bathroom scales. I’m afraid
this is not my area of expertise, Halen.
Halen:
What I need is to get a few guys who are really smart, and then we can do it
together.
Me:
Mm-hmm.
Grace:
Well, I was too smart for preschool, so. . . .
Halen,
of course, completely ignored Grace’s self-aggrandizing offer to help. It’s
unfortunate that younger siblings never get the credit they deserve for being
so servile.
I
remember doing all sorts of sycophantic things for my older siblings: I let my
sister learn to French braid using my hair; I let my brother cut my hair off;
when my sister needed someone to be the ugly Barbie, I was there; when my
brother needed someone to test his tree house for sturdiness, I’d test it. I
was just so thrilled with the privilege of playing with them that for years I didn’t
mind being a doormat.
It’s
easy as adults to watch our children’s interactions through the lens of our own
experiences—to want everything to be as fair for them as we’d want for
ourselves, or to answer their ponderings as quickly as we’d answer our own. But
the truth is that it takes some struggling and some maturity to learn which
questions are actually worth pursuing, which injustices are worth righting (or
even acknowledging), which opportunities are worth giving our all for.
If
our mortal experience were limitless, we could throw our whole selves into
every whim and passion. But it’s not. Mortality is inherently bounded. Maybe some
of our generation can “be whatever we want to be,” but only in a limited sense—we
can’t be everything we want to be.
Humans were made to specialize, and they have only about a decade or three before
they’re locked into their specialty.
I’m
not ashamed that I don’t know how to reprogram a broken bathroom scale into a
robot, because although it’s mildly interesting, it’s not something I want to specialize
in. And I’m not ashamed to allow Grace to continue to be a sycophantic little
sister. If she finds joy in the experience, why not let her explore it until
she has learned something, well and deeply?