Emily Stimpson
From the Mar/Apr 2011 Issue of Lay Witness Magazine
“Snow is no fun when you don’t have kids.”
That’s what my five-year-old friend, Agnes, solemnly informed me of last week. And boy is she right. Snow isn’t any fun when you don’t have kids. Nor are any number of other things: Going to the zoo, decorating Easter eggs, making cookies. The list is a long one. And, as I’m still devoid of children, it’s a list with which I am unfortunately too familiar.
But I manage, mostly because I have grown quite adept at the art of borrowing other people’s children.
When I want to decorate my Christmas tree, I throw a party and invite half the kids I know. If you think decorating a tree is fun with one or two children, try decorating one with twenty.
Likewise, if I have a hankering to go to the circus, I don’t call my girl friends, I call their seven-year-olds.
I hunt for Easter candy with my neighbor’s children, twirl until I’m dizzy with my toddler nieces, and play dress-up whenever my oldest goddaughter comes over for tea. With Agnes and her siblings, I hunt for red and yellow leaves in the fall, and with eightyear- old Madalen I plant my garden in the spring. There are wild games of chase to play with the sons of former roommates, and creeks to stomp with the same.
It’s a splendid arrangement I have, one that benefits all the parties involved. I’ve never yet had a parent protest when I decide to whisk their four daughters off to the ballet. I get to fully delight in that which can only be fully delighted in with children. And the kids? Well, the kids pretty much light up with joy, although they can do that just fine without me.
Which, of course, is why I borrow them. To them, joy comes naturally, far more naturally than it does to us sober grown-up types. Like most things, it’s a question of vision.
When snow falls, adults see slippery roads and disruption to our travel plans. Kids see Frosty and hot chocolate. When ballet tickets are in hand, we see all the hassle of fighting traffic. Kids see bodies that fly. We see the practical. They see the beautiful. Grown-ups need to see what we see. But I like what they see better.
I like how the gift of a small ball of yarn sends thrills of delight up my little friend Beatrice’s spine. I like how my five-year-old niece Emma evaluates the worth of skirt or dress based upon how much it flies out when she spins in circles. I like how Agnes and Bea’s three-year-old brother Myles believes he can grow up to be Superman. I like the innocence and wonder, the excitement and the questions, the intoxicating delight with which children regard the simplest activities of life: knitting a scarf, stirring a soup, and planting tulip bulbs in the back yard.
I like all that because, somehow, mysteriously, when they feel wonder, I feel wonder too. When they see beauty, I see beauty too. When they take delight in something, I take delight in it too. They’re like little conduits of grace, miniature channels through which God reorders souls, giving back just a bit of the joy that years of sin and sorrow take from us.
My grown up friend Amy has a theory that when children are born they are the wisest they’ll ever be. From infancy on, she argues, it’s all down hill. In some areas, Amy’s theory is debatable. But when it comes to joy—to knowing it, understanding it, seeking it, and feeling it—she’s on to something.
Kids, of course, don’t do joy perfectly any more than they make their beds or share with their brothers perfectly. Day-to-day life with little ones, as opposed to borrowing them for strawberry ice cream on a sunny day, brings with it about as many challenges as it does experiences of joy. There’s worry and work and wild tantrums to control. There are messes to clean, meals to cook, and maladies to nurse. Above all there’s that inescapable fact that even the cutest of children eventually grow up to be teenagers.
Nevertheless, to those who unduly complain of such realities, I say, “Tough cookies.” In this world, there’s always a price for joy. Parents may have to endure temper tantrums and teenage rebellion, but they get to swim in that which many of us only get to dip our toes. They can feast on that which the childless can merely taste.
Every parent of every child has been blessed beyond reason. They have been given that which is very aptly described as a bundle of joy. In that particular habit of being, children truly are the teachers, and if we have any scraps of wisdom left, all grown-ups, parents included, do well to enroll in their school.
Classes are only as far off as the next new snow.
Emily Stimpson is an award-winning Catholic writer based in Steubenville, OH. A contributing editor to Our Sunday Visitor newspaper, her work has also appeared in Franciscan Way, First Things, Touchstone, Faith and Family, Loyola’s Best Catholic Writing series, and elsewhere. She is also the co-author with Stacy Mitch of a forthcoming series of Bible studies for teenage girls from Emmaus Road Publishing.
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