Lately I’ve been ruminating on the fixation (American) parents seem to have with their kids having a “thing” as early as possible. By “thing,” I mean an inclination that somehow combines their so-called natural abilities with a socially-approved activity that can be cultivated to a level of excellence. (i.e tennis, dance, piano, chess, etc.). This is fueled by what I call The Toddler Extracurricular Complex, and developmentally, feels like the next stage (age-wise) of hyper-stimulation and over-scheduling because it seems to accelerate around ages 6-7-8 when identities start to be staked more publicly.
I think a lot of what makes this very American is that the need for individualized excellence at a young age is rooted in a very hierarchical and capitalistic system that does not provide access to things like affordable higher education unless you can cultivate specialized skills in this way. So, needing to have a variety of standout skills in high school (for college applications, or what sites about maximizing your credentials for college call by the grotesque term of “juxtapositional extracurriculars” that indicates achievement in multiple distinct areas) trickles all the way down to over-scheduling and over enrolling kids at a very, very young age, pushing them to be competitive, and thus differentiate from their peers.
What’s also lesser-discussed is how the excellence of the child also then reflects intensely on the parents because in order for a child to develop to a level of acumen at many of these things, it requires having parents who take them to many lessons, push them to practice, travel to competitions and tournaments, pay or find money for all of the above, and help coax these “natural abilities” to their fullest potential at every opportunity. (Or you can afford to have other people help you do this). Self-sacrifice is one way of being seen as a “good parent,” and I perceive that it’s less popular to be the parent who is deeply unwilling to expend all their time, money, and energy shuttling the kids to practice or lessons or seeking out instructors because you reject the notion that excellence in something needs to be found particularly early or that everyone necessarily finds this thing in the first place. (hi, it’s me!)
There are many stories where parents sacrificed it all, particular in sports, like Richard Williams, the very devoted father-coach of Venus and Serena Williams, as well as in music and the arts and academics pretty much everywhere you turn. There are also parents determined to cultivate a sport or instrument in their child who seem to do it through pure will and exposure. (It’s no coincidence that many professional athletes have parents who were also pros). There are also of course kids who are seemingly athletic or artistic or musical from the womb and lead their parents down unexpected paths of devotion to musical theater or skateboarding and so on. The latter is what I think many (especially middle to upper middle class parents) hope for—that their kid has a very obvious inclination to something, and you are can gracefully shepherd them to the front door of that thing so they can fly somewhat independently. But, there’s can be a real degree of anxiety when that thing doesn’t present and other parents and kids are very public about their things, thus theoretically leaving your kid “behind.”
Like many 2023 parents, I want my kids to try a lot, whether it be sports or instruments or chess or ceramics. I do believe in working hard at things and doing things that are not fun and uncomfortable. I want to know what they’re into and want them to know what they’re into. I want them to feel the thrill of winning a soccer tournament and being on a team who pushes through to a hard won victory, but shield them from the deep hurt of disappointment that comes when you’re a mediocre player and the coach only plays you for five minutes. I want them to want to want to be good at something and also be fine being not the best at something. I definitely have nights where I wrestle with how to get them to embrace un-fun things that become more enjoyable the more mastery you have, but am not giving over all my afternoons, evenings and weekends in service of these things.
I am an adult generalist through and through and for a long time that felt like a non-linear or unfocused path, but now it feels like having many options. I’m fine but will never be great at a lot of things like running, ceramics, violin, cooking, throwing a frisbee, driving long distances, making smoothies, etc. I am quite good at a handful of other things that have no obvious connection to what I did as a child—synthesizing large volumes of information into coherent narratives, interviewing people, taking pictures (sometimes), remembering where random objects were left in the house, etc. I also have natural abilities like perfect pitch that only make me painfully aware of how bad I am at singing. As it turns out, sometimes you’re not great at the thing you love, and sometimes you love the thing that you’re not great at, and figuring that out on your own is hard enough without everybody else hovering on the sidelines.
Recommendations (short list):
To eat: The $3 mole tamales outside the Carroll Street F/G stop (that I think is there most weekday mornings)
To read: This short-ish essay about Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, the recently passed Ethiopian nun who plays otherworldy piano music by Amanda Petrusich for The New Yorker.
To read: The great and thoroughly enjoyable Goop cruise essay in Harper’s, I Really Didn’t Want to Go
To read: I wrote a roundup on the Best Rain Gear for Kids for The Strategist
To listen: This episode of the TASTE podcast with Gage & Tollner pastry chef Caroline Schiff, where I learned a lot about historical desserts.
Question: Where do you get large area rugs you love? Looking to replace something 8x10 / 9x11-ish without spending an arm and a leg.
As a mom, I feel this a lot. I also grapple with similar thoughts. It's unlearning what we were raised to think. Maybe make the extreme not so extreme. It reminds me of this quote from Kurt Vonnegut!
“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of ‘getting to know you’ questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.
“And he went wow. That’s amazing! And I said, ‘Oh no, but I’m not any good at any of them.’
“And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: ‘I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.’
“And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could ‘win’ at them.”
I feel very seen in this essay. Our oldest is 8y.o., and it feels like parenting culture has told us that we’ve already missed the boat in him finding his thing, but he loves just hanging out. It is hard to not feel like my kids will be “behind” but we figure they are just skill building in other ways that will still be positive.
I hear a lot of good things about rugsource.com. But haven’t used it myself yet. Good luck with the search!