Children Self-Defined

Rowan will tell you that he's got a craftsman's hands. That he'll probably be an artist someday. He's got my dads hands and as that was one of my favorite things about my father, Rowan knows all about it. He didn't get to know my dad, but my brother has those hands too, so he can compare and see the similarities. Beautiful, long fingered, masculine, capable hands. But I didn't tell Rowan that he was going to be an artist. He came up with that all on his own. My father was a very skilled leather craftsman, and there are lots of crafty and artistic people in my family, but Rowan spends very little time doing what you would call "art". We do lots of projects together, and he has a certain aptitude, but he is not at all compelled to spend time practicing autonomously. Not the kid who walks around with a pad and pen trying to capture the world. I have wondered if I somehow saddled him with this expectation by comparing his hands to my fathers so often. He seems to get satisfaction from it though. Like he's got something of value in his bag of tricks that he's going to whip out on us someday. A quiet knowing. I grew up one of five siblings, and we all had our labels. In looking back I can not discern whether those labels were given to us, or whether we took those labels on to set ourselves apart from the brood. I have realized that they limited us somewhat. We all have artistic skills, but one sister was the artist and the rest of us stayed off her turf. We all had vocal capabilities, but I was the singer, and the others didn't do much to unseat my reign either. We were all intelligent, but another sister was given the academic arena. Anyway, there were five of us and I can't help but wish that I had done some art, or taken my education a little more seriously and that the others had jumped in and gotten musical sooner(though they all came around eventually). As a parent of course, I encourage my children to explore all of their many talents and consider what they can give to themselves and the world through honing their skills. They still seem to want to define themselves as one thing or another, but that's just human nature. As long as they are defining themselves by what they enjoy doing rather than what brand of clothing they wear, I guess they'll be alright.