dreams

Just like other children her age, as I would totally hope she does, my older daughter has dreams for her life. Unlike my younger child, whose philosophy is, "I'll grow up and then figure out what I want to do when I get there" (which is practical, since it's what most of us do anyway), my oldest daughter has always known what she wants to do with her life. Since she was five years old, Katie has wanted one of two career paths. Path A involves studying biology and becoming a penguin keeper at Sea World. Strange, but suits her perfectly. Path B involves being a Broadway actress. Suits her as well. And, yet, the odds are stacked against her ever doing either of those things. Both are life occupations that require hard work and a good bit of luck, and talent in the case of the second.

My twelve year old should not have to change her dreams for today, but at what point do I, as a parent, start talking about "back up plans" and more realistic plans for her life? I mean, I know I grew up hearing that America is a wonderful place to live and you can be anything you want to be. But that's not true, is it? I mean, there are billions of people living in our country, and only one person every four years can be elected president. Only a handful of people will ever be astronauts. Sea World only hires a handful of penguin keepers. And New York is littered with waitresses who are dying to work on Broadway. At what age do I have to burst her bubble? See, I still want her to aim for her dreams, even when she knows the odds. I want her to work hard, seek goals with determination, and still be able to accept that plans have to change in our lives. I want her to find the balance of taking blind leaps of faith, but also know how to pick herself up out of the dust when that leap doesn't work out.

I'm missing the days when parenting meant teaching my girls to not run into the street, how to write their names, the dangers of a hot stove, and what it's like to walk barefoot after a rain. No one told me that being a mom meant sometimes being the bearer of bad news, and often times the only one with the guts to give that news. The lessons just keep getting harder, and reality is crushing in on them.

When Katie was two years old, we were sitting in our backyard, after playing on her hand-me-down trampoline. She was enchanted, watching the sun set over the neighbor's house. She turned to me and said, "I love sunset, it's when the sky gets to make magic colors." Her dad started to give a detailed explanation of where the colors come from and using scientific terms. I stopped him, because I thought my two year old needed to hold on to magic a little bit longer, the way that she needed to hold on to the Easter Bunny.

I still want my kids to hold on to magic and their dreams a little bit longer. I think our dreams help define who and what we are. Without dreams, why do we bother to try a little bit harder, push a little bit more, aim a little bit higher?

To me, she's still the same little girl, in a grubby pink dress, carting her favorite stuffed penguin around the backyard, talking about magic colors and putting on shows for us on our back patio. I didn't want the reality of reason to intrude on her enjoyment of life then, and I still don't want that for her now.

I'm so entrenched in the day-to-day of my life now that I am not sure I'd recognize my childhood dreams if I met them coming down the street. I am sad to think that I'm not sure when I gave them up, or how hard I tried to follow their path. I hope my children follow their dreams to wherever the path might lead, but keep a map back, just in case it doesn't work out.