As we walked into Liam's art fair/competition on Wednesday
night I immediately scanned the room for his entry because shame and I, we've
never met. I finally saw his piece, an interpretation of a work by Jackson
Pollack, with a red third place ribbon affixed to its corner.
I checked in my purse to assure that I'd packed a jar of
Vaseline so as to get our egos back out the door before showing him his ribbon
and congratulating him. Liam is at the stage where he could accomplish quite a
lot artistically (more so than now) if Chris and I wanted to really push him, really cultivate
him. But we don't. We let him do as much as he wants. We first thought that
perhaps we were doing Liam a disservice, holding him back. We've since
decided to the contrary. I always second-guess my parenting decisions. (I'm
sure that will make the kids feel fabulous when they read this as teenagers.
Hi! We've no clue as to what we're doing! Love, Mom and Dad.)
When I first began homeschooling we decided that our major
goal was to discover each of our kids' particular gifts and then teach and encourage
them to use those gifts for societal benefit. I don't want to burn them out on their
passions during their childhood, besides; I want them to enjoy their youth. We
know another young artist whom I believe to be equally advanced as Liam. He's
always in some art workshop, studying in a mentor program, doing this, doing
that, going here, going there. He's a brilliant kid but he doesn't act like a kid. Perhaps he's just super mature for
his age but the last time we were around him and his parents in a social
setting I fully expected to see him smoking a cigar and clutching a glass of
scotch. I want Liam to run and revel in all that defines childhood. We have a
period in our life where we're afforded a free pass to behave immaturely and
explore all of our options because of our age. I want him to enjoy that. Besides, I think he does wonderfully as it is.
