scribblechic

There is a singular line of questioning at my children’s more formal education meetings that perpetually derail my confidence. It is a whisper into an uncertainty that leaves me raking my thoughts for better answers than the truth.

What are your child’s interests?

This question of interests has the unpleasant sensation of a dream interview for which I am inexplicably naked in my choices.

At a time when so many children are committed to interests whose measure of success are weighted in structured programing, my children stumble through quieter demonstrations of creativity outside extracurricular agendas or team schedules. If you looked into the chaos of their rooms you would find hidden troves of reappropriated objects crafted into physical representations of daydreams from play interrupted.

I sometimes wonder if I have shortchanged them an undetermined future experience of success without the childhood reference of more consciously choreographed practice and play or the shared responsibility of accomplishment and failure. Today, I tried desperately to frame my daughter’s interests into an answer that felt appropriately conformed and felt shamefully tender to the realization that the very act of shaping her interests into another’s category undermined the unspecific fluidity of her meandering.

My daughter’s interests are undetermined, she’s finding her way into herself and I am trying to refrain from molding what is hers to define.

Tagged: Children, Daughter, Musings