Guest Column!

Back to...

Childhood, on average, plays out just fine
by Marianne Moody Jennings, JD

hen I had my first child I had visions of a Rhodes scholar. By the time I had my third child, I was to the point of hoping he would have only four misdemeanor convictions. Now that I have four children, I only pray that they don’t commit the types of crimes that make national news.

My children don’t hold concerts with Luciano Pavarotti. They never took Suzuki violin lessons. They can, however, pop a bag of microwave popcorn so that is has no kernels left in the bottom. It only took them 137 tries and a small fire.

I’m reminded of my children’s lack of Entertainment Tonight appearances particularly now because those family Christmas letters are rolling into our home. How do other people get their children disciplined enough to perform opera at the Met?

I confess to feeling some guilt that I never ran my daughters around to Little Miss USA pageants. I sometimes feel lazy because my sons aren’t competing in swimming leagues. I often wonder if my children will become Ted Kaczynskis because they don’t have ribbons and trophies. This year’s Olympics with the young athletes and their post-competition talk show appearances courtesy of gold medals, agents and lawyers, have added to my guilt.

Parents sacrificed, these children worked hard and now, before they have even reached the age when they could buy a lottery ticket, they've struck it rich. Their futures are secure.

But my guilt is not as intense this year. I shall be forever grateful for the 1996 Olympics and the cathartic experience they gave me. Watching gymnast Kerri Strug land with a grimace after she completed a vault with an injured ankle taught me that having average children is not such a bad thing. Strug looked to her coach, Bela Karolyi, before she decided to do the vault. Children are always eager to please.

I enrolled my oldest daughter in dance lessons when she was 3. Right at the dinner hour, three nights each week, I rushed her to a studio where she made dance-like movements for an hour with a line of 15 tiny mopheads. She would whine when we got her dressed for dance, and when she stepped out of the studio, she would look up at me with sad eyes that said, "Why are you doing this to me? It was childbirth, wasn’t it? You’re getting back at me."

Now that she is a teenager and I know her strengths and what she enjoys, it embarrassing that I forced her to tap away for three months. This is where the parents of average children show their wisdom. Their children are free to explore and excel as they wish. There are no forced lessons. No contrived lifestyles.

No parent of an average child is living vicariously through his or her child. Parents of average children have an odd inner strength that gives their children childhoods.

I watch the family cars in my neighborhood run from oboe concertos to gymnastics to voice lessons to karate dojos and then on the classes in neurosurgery for the gifted 10-year-old. Some children’s calendars are more booked than mine. Their dinners are on the run.

The swing sets in their back yards are idle. The only motion comes from an occcasional soft breeze.

Perhaps the lessons and superhuman childhood achievement are consolation for time-challenged parents. Children eager to gain attention from the intermittently present adults take lessons they hate and risks that could harm them.

Today my children found a lizard and rescued it from the cat. Later they replaced the head of an old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure with a piece of chalk and laughed hysterically at the pinhead they had created. They want to make some popcorn tonight and watch The Munsters reruns. It’s not headline stuff. It’s a childhood. They’re so average, I couldn’t be more proud.

__________________________________________________
Marianne Moody Jennings teaches legal and ethical studies at Arizona State University. She is the author of Nobody Fixes Real Carrot Sticks Anymore.