When I think about the depths of my three year old’s obsession with mushrooms, it makes all of my own interests pale in comparison. He wakes up and looks at books about fungi, he catalogs mushrooms out loud while laying in bed. He asks to visit the grocery store to inspect edible mushrooms, and one-by-one points out: morels, oyster mushrooms, crimini, portobello, shiitake, etc. from his seat in the shopping cart. Most frequently of all, he asks-slash-demands that I craft and draw pictures of each of his favorite poisonous varietals, in specific order, on a single sheet of drawing paper: Fly Agaric (aka Amanita Muscaria), Death Cap, Death Trumpet, King Stropharia, False Morel, and Destroying Angel. The task is daunting because of the specificity of his knowledge. If I paint the mushrooms he’s art directing incorrectly—like by adding gills where there shouldn’t be, or if the shade of yellow on the cap of the Death Cap is a smidge too green—we have to start over from the beginning. Such it is that we have dozens of papers partially covered with painted mushrooms, discards of a three year old after toxic perfection.
Julian self-identifies as a mycologist, but also doesn’t quite understand that others don’t have the same depth of fungi knowledge he does. He often starts a conversation with a parent at the playground or a barista at a coffee shop by asking, “Did you know that fungi are not plants or animals; they are in a realm all their own?,” parroting a line from Elise Gravel’s Mushroom Fan Club to a confused-but-amused audience. When he proceeds to ask if they like “Amanita Muscaria” and he warns them not to touch the Death Cap because it is very toxic, most adults knowingly smile with the joy of seeing that a small child has fallen down a rabbit hole, and in that rabbit hole is an expansive world in which to get lost. These worlds are often both adult in their linguistic complexity and depth of knowledge. Yet, they are innocent in their total fixation; it’s miraculous that after three years as a living being, one can devote so many waking hours and so much exuberance to a single thing, when grown adults struggle with this every day.
When we go outside for walks and hikes, Julian spends most of his time squatted quite low to the ground, prowling for fungi alongside the trails. A few weeks ago, in an attempt to buy me a few hours to work, Jacob took the kids on a “mushroom hunt” along the rail trail just south of Kingston. Each kid had a magnifying glass and a small pocket knife to collect specimens, though the goal was to spot, not collect. Thanks to the powers of nature, the ROI on this trip was high. They found at least a dozen varieties along a 1/3 mile stretch of a walk, including a giant plate-sized white cap high up on a tree.
My kids’ way of “collecting” things they cannot bring home is to ask me and my husband to take a picture on our iPhones. A photographic record is their way of journaling, a snapshot that makes it real before we move on. A scroll through mine or his phones would reveal hundreds of these images—of mushrooms, flowers, notable rocks, of toys the kids wanted at Target— even though we rarely ever return to look at them again. It’s a state of documentation that allows for more permanence as well as letting go, the perfect vehicle for ephemerality.
Mushrooms turn out to be the perfect child hobby full of metaphors for their distracted, goal-oriented parents: move too fast, and you could miss out on abundance. Act too cocky, and you could inadvertently consume something that kills you. Move slowly, deliberately, and investigate with curiosity, and they will continue to reward, time and again. Basically, act like a child.
P.S. For more on how we should all spend more time getting adults to think like kids, listen to (or read the transcript of) this episode of the Ezra Klein show: he talks to Alison Gopnik, who runs the Cognitive Development and Learning Lab at UC Berkeley).
So I think the other thing is that being with children can give adults a sense of this broader way of being in the world. So I think both of you can appreciate the fact that caring for children is this fundamental foundational important thing that is allowing exploration and learning to take place, rather than thinking that that’s just kind of the scut work and what you really need to do is go out and do explicit teaching. That’s a way of appreciating it. And I think having this kind of empathic relationship to the children who are exploring so much is another. — Alison Gopnik
Recommendations for the kids:
Read: I’ve gathered some of our favorite fungi books in this collection. You can find lots of other summer reading recs for littles over at the @kidsbookrecs collection at Bookshop.org.
Fungi-gram: My favorite fungi IG account is Alexis Nikole (@blackforager) for exuberant foraging energy.
The art supplies getting us through summer are Prismacolor’s 36-pack of colored pencils (more vibrant + more expensive but significantly more superior), these dual-tipped markers, and packs of these blank postcards, so you can send creations to relatives and friends.
Eat: We became Costco members last week (more on that later) and they sell a line of Tropical Fields brand coconut snacks that are out of this world delicious. Mashable reports I’m not the only person obsessed. Like crunchy, coconutty, not too sweet, and … perfect?
Wear: I’ve long been obsessed with Korean kids’ clothing brands b/c the colors, fabrics, and cuts are just so much… better. Little Occasion has an adorable selection. (Too bad my kids no longer let me influence their attire).
Recommendations for the grown-ups:
Wear: It may not be fashion, but Patagonia’s Baggies shorts are our family’s shorts for summer. Lightweight, pocketed, easy to wash, durable, fun colors, workable as a bathing suit, etc, there are days when 3 out of 4 of us have these on in different color ways, beach outing or otherwise.
Listen: This podcast episode of Decoder Ring investigates our obsession with hydration. Are you even a parent if you’re not always carrying multiple water bottles? Why are we all so obsessed with drinking water?
Listen: I’ve also been consuming every interview with Michelle Zauner (of Japanese Breakfast + Crying in Hmart) that I can find. Some favorites include her recent convo with David Chang about Korean mothers, her convo with Anna Sale of Death, Sex & Money, and her convo on The Cut, Cooking Without My Mother.
Read: Feeling so much schadenfreude for Anne Helen Petersen’s latest issue of Culture Study, What It Feels Like to Lose Your Favorite Season, in which she mourns the loss of summer in the American West to climate extremity.
Read: If you were a big fan of Normal People or Conversations with Friends, then go check out “Unread Messages,” an excerpt from Sally Rooney’s forthcoming novel Beautiful World, Where Are You (available for pre-order).
Business corner:
I’ve opened up sign-ups for a limited number of 30-minute ($75) trial coaching sessions in August. If you’re like, “how do I better balance my job with being a parent?” “Is this the right time to quit my job and start my own biz?” and you’ve ever been coaching-curious, I hope you’ll consider signing up. You can also read more about it here.
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Hi! Really enjoyed this newsletter and hearing about your kids' obsession with fungi. If they're interested in growing their own mushrooms, Far West sells kits - https://farwestfungi.com/collections/mushroom-mini-farms