Taking After Our Child

As I type this, my son is on the couch with my husband watching Pixar's Cars. Before our son was born, my husband and I had enjoyed some of Pixar's other works, but for some reason we did not really like Cars. We figured we would never have to sit through another viewing of it, and we definitely never guessed that it would end up as a movie on regular rotation within our home. Fast forward to today, and as I'm typing, I can hear my son and husband chanting, "Go, go, go, go!" as Lightning McQueen makes his way around the speedway.

When I was pregnant with our son, my husband and I decided that we wanted to keep the baby's gender a surprise. We not only liked the idea that the birth would be like getting to open the biggest surprise gift ever, but we also wanted to avoid the trap of receiving piles of gender specific shower gifts. The thought of ending up with a collection of "My Little Slugger" or "Our Princess" apparel truly appalled us. We were determined to raise our child in as gender neutral a way as possible. And then...our son was born.

My husband and I are the most unathletically talented people in the world and yet somehow we gave birth to a boy who has been able to throw balls far and straight since an early age. I always chuckle when we go to a park and see some very obviously sports-minded father playing with his daughter on the playground. I'm always sure that he loves his sweet daddy's girl with all his heart, but I swear I detect a pained look of jealousy as he watches our son displaying the skills of a future pitcher or star quarterback. Despite all of our intentions to raise our child in a gender neutral fashion, what we brought into this world was a boy that is 100% "boy."

So bringing this back to Cars, let's just say that our boy of all boys is currently in love with cars. He still has a very limited vocabulary and so most of our conversations with him are spoken in "car." I'd say that at least 90% of the words that come out of his mouth during the day include following: car, truck, train, vrrrrrrroooom, choo-choo, beep-beep, and OH!-AHHH! (sound effects of cars crashing). We have even witnessed him mutter the word "car" in his sleep and as the first word when waking up.

You always hear about parents who want their children to follow in their footsteps, but as my husband and I have never had any real interest in cars, I can assure you that his interest in cars has nothing to do with him taking after us. In fact, rather than us pushing him to be just like us, I have found that we are being inspired by his passions and so in some ways we are taking after him.

While my husband and I continually try to expose him to a wide variety of learning opportunities around our community, we also realize that the best way to connect with him is by supporting what he loves most. Right now, that just so happens to be cars. So, this has translated into my videogaming husband spending more time playing racing games than I have ever seen him want to. It has meant that I've actually tuned into some NASCAR races on television for the first time. When I go to the library, I have come to know where to find all of the books on cars, and I am finally learning how to distinguish between different types of trucks that I never had the interest to even think about.

While there are life lessons that we certainly hope to pass on to our son, I think that my husband and I are realizing that the learning path really goes two-ways. Whatever our son falls in love with next will surely guide us to discover more about the world that we never took the time to look at on our own.