On the subject of managing parental expectations and desires...

Today I saw a series of tweets from one of our favorite cartoonists, John Kovalic (of DorkTower and Munchkin fame), regarding recent antics of his Daughter, aged 5.


Kovalic the younger is about six months older than my daughter, so it's hard not to see her as a benchmark.  I think all parents do this consciously and unconsciously - compare our children to everyone else's.  Usually so we can feel smug about how much better our kid is.  I'm sure it's some sort of biological imperative that every parent be irrevocably convinced of their own child's desirability and superiority, but there we are.


Luckily for me, our daughter is a superior specimen of homo sapiens.  She is bright, confident, funny, and is learning to read at a frightening rate.  In general, she kicks about as much ass as an almost-five-year-old can be expected to kick.

So why, then, did I have a momentary pang of disappointment or regret in my gut after reading this series of tweets from Kovalic the elder?

I realized first that I was jealous. I was feeling jealous and sad that my family can't share this experience yet because Annika is not ready.

How can she not be ready?  She of the 3rd-to-4th-grade-reading ability? She who will confidently sing songs and tell jokes to a brigade of grown pirates while wearing a faerie costume at a Renaissance Fair?  Is she behind? Is she emotionally less mature than other five year olds?  Why can't we watch even Disney movies at home without her getting scared?

I'll skip to the end here and state what is probably obvious to everyone else, but took me several moments to realize - This was all about me, and she is just fine.  Better than fine.  She's got so much going for her, that it's too easy to forget that she is still not yet five.  Her sensitivity and imagination are strengths, and the fact that she is not yet able to abstract what she sees on TV as merely "entertainment", and not something to internalize deeply is a good thing.  

When I felt jealousy that the Kovalic family had reached a stage where they are able to share such experiences, I finally realized that I was over-motivated because of this very specific cultural touchstone, Star Wars.  My reaction would probably have been very different if the topic had been any other movie or book, but it was The Trilogy, the movies I've seen more than any other, and that are such an important piece of so many phases of my life that it's hard to imagine a parallel universe without it.  This was all about me being impatient to re-live my childhood through my daughter's experiences.  In the end, I suppose that's normal too, so it's something to look forward to.  For now, we'll keep working on getting through Cars or Lilo & Stitch without her being too afraid.

I'll be damned if I'm going to sit through Frozen again any time soon, though.