Parents are competitve. I’ve noticed that as I’ve been traveling down the dirt road of parenthood. I noticed the competition in the early days when I would take Noble to the play gym. The moms would be grilling each other, “When did your kid start walking? Mine started walking at 47.5 weeks. That’s advanced. But I’m sure your kid will walk soon. When did your kid get his first teeth? First words?”
Playdates and play gyms are a place to either feel superior, or as if your kid is somehow not very advanced – which means that you, as a parent, are a horrible failure.
As Noble has gotten older, the competitions have turned to sporting ability and achievement. Also parents are competitive with reading and writing. It feels like we have to be on top of our kids, or else everybody else’s kids are gonna win. Win what? I don’t really know…maybe the prize of awesomeness and glory?
As far as my kids go, we like to just blend in. We are not about competition and “winning” as Charlie Sheen would have us believe. That’s why Noble is more into individual sports, like cliff diving. It’s not about being better than anybody else. It’s about jumping off a 100 foot cliff into rough waters, killing a shark, and then doing the butterfly stroke back to shore. Stuff your kid probably does too, right?
Can you believe he wanted to do it without a life vest?! I said, “No way, dude! Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. You are 5: Safety First!”
Alistair, on the other hand, is more of a rock climber. He doesn’t use ropes, but what 20 month old does? It’s like gravity doesn’t exist for these kids, right? I’m sure your kid does this all the time. If he doesn’t now, he will. Very soon. Maybe it’s just a fluke that Alistair picked up rock climbing so early in life.
Another thing Noble has taken up lately is fishing. Your kids fish too? That’s wonderful! Your kid catches fish all the time? Wow! You must be proud. Noble has only ever caught one fish. I managed to take a picture of it. We didn’t have poles or bait, and he was dead set on eating fish for lunch. These kids and their persistence, right? So we went to the river to try and figure something out. Before I knew it, there’s Noble, attacking a bear who had already caught a fish! He managed to choke the bear unconscious and steal the fish, silly kid.
Anyway, I think that we should just let our kids do and explore, and we should check our personal competitive nature a the door.
So will we see you at the zoo later? Noble has a gator show. He does this thing where he sticks his head in their mouths. It’s SO Noble.