What We Already Are

When I became a mother for the first time, no one said to me, "Hey, that's nice, but you are not a mother yet, maybe someday." No, I was a mother because I was doing it.

Today I was reflecting on something that I noticed with the amazing group of women that surround and support me and how they treat my daughter, who is often with me when I see them. They take her seriously as an artist. She won't someday be an artist maybe. She IS. She is because she is doing it. She is because she loves it. She is because it makes her happy and she cannot imagine a life without making art. She is 9 and she doesn't have to wait to grow up  to be something. She is.

Holly is a dancer. She works hard to learn more and practise her skills, but she goes to the studio, trains, and at the end of the year will perform on stage. She doesn't have to wait to think she will someday be something. She IS. She is 5.

Isaac? He loves trains and toys and running and painting. Right now he is loving just being with us and doing what we do. Soon enough he will share with us what he loves and we will nurture it. 

Nurturing a child is the critical point here. If we tell them, That's nice, but it doesn't mean anything significant. Move along. How will they ever really believe that they could ever be anything? I suffer that now, not sure if I can call myself a writer or a poet even though I do both and have even been published! Maybe it is because I don't really feel all grown up and so much importance was placed on being grown up before one could really be anything at all.

Holly wants to be a pilot too and a construction worker. She already builds things. She LOVES aircraft of all kind. You will never catch me doubting what any of my children are capable of. Not ever. Watch them fly!

The kids are also farmers, right by our side doing work that they love, hard work. They earn the credit for this work that most just dismiss the value of because of their age alone. That is so problematic. Children can and want to do meaningful work and my children do.

I will continue to be their biggest fan, encourage them to dream and see possibilities with every turn. I will carefully tend their imagination and help turn their dreams into reality. That is how we homeschool and how we parent. It goes beyond that though, it doesn't stop at my children. More and more, I have found myself cheering on and encouraging others, children and adults, to believe in their own possibilities. Who says that it is too late? Seriously? Who? If you want to do it, give it a try. Progress measured in inches is still progress.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Can you take the step and call yourself that now?