I’m wondering if the interests our children have in early childhood are a reflection of what’s to come later in life. If they are, I’m in big trouble. I had a moment of panic this evening while driving with Luke in the backseat of the car. He was singing along to Sheryl Crow’s Real Gone from the movie Cars. His head bobbed in time to the music, as he sung with all the grit and attitude a soon to be four-year-old could muster, “You can say what you want, but you can’t say it round here, cause they’ll get you and give you a whippin’.”
In my vision of parenting I saw a number of potential road hazards during the preschool years. I figured I might be faced with having Luke want to wear purple toenail polish, or try on my stilettos. I’m fine with either of those scenarios. I figured he might opt early on, say in preschool, to chart a course different than the one I had planned. No problem, I’m open to the idea of self exploration. In fact I welcome it. I figured he would go through a glue-eating phase, or refuse to eat peas. Fine, haven’t we all done that? But raising a NASCAR fan was never part of my parenting vision.
How has this happened? Have I been too indulgent? Sure I encouraged the Cars obsession, raced around town trying to find obscure characters for his ever growing collection over the holidays, but isn’t that what you’re supposed to do as a parent? I kept telling myself this was a passing craze, soon to be forgotten as new shiny toys appeared on shelves around stores. But I’m afraid it might be time to face reality, to come to a place of acceptance. My son is grooming himself to be a NASCAR fan. I will love him without limits, as he sings about whippins’, and explains “pit stops.” I’ll continue to play along with him, re-stacking tires, giving his cars new paint jobs on the hardwood floor in his bedroom. I’ll immerse myself in a world I had no interest in, and do so willingly because this is how deep my love for him is. But why couldn’t it have been something simple like purple toenail polish?
This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Made Me Laugh, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
