All children are different.
My First – the WHY child – why is the sky blue, why do we need gas for the car, why do some people live on the streets – if he heard about something he wanted to know why – why it existed, its purpose, he had a never ending need to understand everything. He pushed himself to excel at everything he did. Trying to achieve the almost impossible. He burdened himself at times, because needing to know sometimes means you find out things that are not to your liking. This is never more true than when you are a child. He doesn’t just think about things, he feels them and wants to see the good in all that surrounds him. IT takes him longer to figure things out, to move forward with a thought or idea, or to accomplish what he needs to do. However, when he gets there he will know the value of his efforts.
My Second child – the Just Do it child – Didn’t ask questions, just head strong pursued whatever it was she was after. No fear when leaping out of her crib, Climbing to the top of the fridge, running in circles for hours, making new friends, spending hours setting up her play area for whatever adventure she was going to pursue. Dancing with total abandonment, just because she enjoyed it. She made mistakes. Many mistakes. But from these mistakes she learned every time. She didn’t repeat the same mistake, she learned and moved on to more adventures, more opportunities to make mistakes, and more opportunities to learn and grow and succeed. She will always do well, but will struggle to understand people who do not have her same sense of fearlessness.
My third child – The WHAT IF Child – What if aliens came down to earth and replaced us with robots, what if we are all just little bits in a huge computer game and someone is playing us, what if we didn’t have a home and had to live in the streets – my dreamer, my creative guy, my I don’t see the world the same way the rest of you do. Caring and yet daring to be different. He questioned why he was different from the other kids around him. At an early age he realized that there was a whole big world outside of himself, and he saw it with a different perspective. He always had that thought What IF . . . Someday, he will use his amazing WHAT IF mind to create something that he can be proud of, something that will help him answer his questions. I hope he will never lose the child in him that drives him to ask, WHAT IF.
Now being different my children fought – a lot – and often did not get along. They had different needs, different wants, and different hopes. But the other side of it, when they got along, when they laughed at the same stories or jokes, shared expressions about the same music or movies, and just enjoyed each other’s company – well this just exemplified everything that is wonderful about people. Different people, finding similarities, and enjoying those times together.
I am so lucky to have had three children with 3 quite different personalities, desires, goals and futures. It reminds me that we are NOT all the same. We are all different. IF I’d had another child would he/she be a SPORTS child, a SCIENCE child, a HAPPY child, an ENTERTAINING child, the list is as long as each and every child that exists in this world.
My three children are more than the labels I have given them here. They are a combination of all the wonderful things that make becoming a parent the greatest gift that ever there was.
Ann Ev 