By the time I was 10 years old, I'd already decided that I had the whole world figured out and it was time for me to be an adult. And I distinctly remember how much I hated being treated like a child, when my opinion never mattered and nobody ever gave me credit for knowing anything. As I grew older, I found that the more knowledge I pretended to have, the more people took me seriously, and the better I got at it, the more I convinced myself that yes, I did indeed have the world figured out.
The funny thing is - being a grown-up is not much different than being 10 - you come to a point when you think you know everything there is to know and are just waiting to impart this knowledge and wisdom upon the next generation. And as we get older, we all learn that you need that level of confidence to land a job and have people trust that you know what you're doing, and we are told it's better to be confident than to sell yourself short if you want to succeed. After several years of practice, you really start to believe that you know it all, and then one day you wake up and realize that you're pretty much a rockstar.
For me, this sense of self-assurance didn't come naturally, but I'd like to credit my West Point experience for practically forcing the "faking-the-confidence-funk" down my throat for 4 years. I learned quickly that if you act like you know what's going on, you've already solved half the problem and you just bought yourself a little extra time to really figure it out. Over the six years of my time in the Army, I learned some of the best life skills I'll use for the rest of my life (time management is one of them, briefing powerpoints is not). All that "leadership" training was put to good use as I discovered odd ways to manipulate my children to help with household chores and to make them believe that their mom is the boss of all mankind. For once in my life, I wasn't all too stressed. My grades were steady, my mood was even, the girls were happy and consistently fed, and I thought that finally, at age almost-30, I've got myself together.
The truth is (and this came to me overnight) - I don't have it figured it out at all. In fact, with all my newfound multi-tasking skills, I've freed myself up with all this extra "time", which, of course, I choose to spend with my children. And the more time I spend with my kids, the more I realize I have a whole lot left to learn. I learned by just listening to them, you gain insight into how their little minds think, and all those questions that I used to just push aside when times were just too busy, are actually very challenging and really difficult to answer. I see that I never gave them enough credit for thinking so much - questioning everything and anything under the sun - and I forgot what that was like to walk around all day just wondering how things work instead of assuming you already knew the answer.
A little while ago Kaylee asked me what the wires and poles that were lining the streets were for, and I explained that power lines help all the houses get power and telephone lines let us talk on the phone. Her response had me laughing for days: "Oh, I thought it was just a place for the birds to sit so they don't get run over by the cars."
It actually is a pretty logical way of thinking - the birds must get tired and need a place to rest during their travels, so someone must have built those wires so they can just stop when they need to and not lose their spot on the road that they are following to their destination. Cars follow the roads to get to places, so birds must do the same thing from the sky, right? And if drivers get tired, they can just pull over and stop, but if birds did that on the ground, they'd certainly get run over. Makes perfect sense.
Then just yesterday on the ride home from their school she asked me how she would get water from the giant water tower that is located right outside her school building. She said the next time I forgot to pack to her water bottle, that she'd be fine because she'd just go get some from the water tower. I told her that piping underground helps get water to all the buildings, and that she could probably just get water from the fountain instead. Her response? "That would probably be better. Wow, you're so smart, Momma. You know everything."
I laughed on the outside but really, I had to just shake my head while thinking to myself that it's just so the opposite. When was the last time I thought about how the birds actually know where they're going or what they do to get a break, or how water actually does make it from a huge tower to my sink faucet? When did I stop thinking and wondering about things, and when did I get too busy to just ponder about the countless wonders of this world? When did my 4 year old get so smart, and how awesome is it that her little mind is so active that everything she sees is just what it is: a pure wonder?
In my busy day-to-day life I guess I just failed to stop and look around at all that is just amazing about the world we live in. When you spare a few minutes and just take it all in, you realize just how big everything else is and how much room there is left for growth, no matter what age. Being a grown-up just means to be somewhat responsible, but it doesn't mean you have to have it all figured out. A child can remind us to think, to use our minds and our imagination. A child can challenge us to put aside what we already have learned from the books and come up with reasons to explain the unexplainable. A child can make us appreciate all those things we take for granted.
I am realizing now that to see the world through the eyes of a child is one of the greatest things about being a parent. Innocence, purity, and simplicity. The only thing better is, well, seeing your child through the eyes of the world. A little human being with a soul so pure and a spirit so free - and a mind beyond limits.
Just when I thought I knew it all, leave it up to my kid to prove me otherwise. But it's ok, she thinks I'm a genius...and I won't mess with that.
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