The Misfit
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 at 7:01AM MAD21 By Michelle (Graceful, Faith in the Everyday)
It didn’t take long for me to realize that Noah is not an ordinary kid. When other two-year-olds were repeating words like “cookie” and “bye-bye,” Noah’s favorite word was “awning.” “Look at that fancy awning,” Noah would say, pointing at striped fabric as we drove past Roper & Sons Funeral Home.
When he was five Noah developed a love of plants, particularly succulents, those funky, Zen-looking plants that belong to the cactus family (or maybe cacti belong to the succulent family, I’m not sure – clearly I haven’t listened carefully enough to Noah). While other kids his age collected Pokémon cards and Spiderman figures, Noah collected euphorbia and crassula, aloe and agave. At last count he had 31 succulents in his collection.
I’ll never forget the time Noah sat on Santa’s lap and requested Designing with Succulents, a garden design book he’d spotted at Barnes & Noble. I could read the look on Santa’s face: not only did he not know what a succulent was, he suspected it had pornographic connotations. I stood behind the rope and yelled, “It’s a plant book! It’s a plant book!” in the hopes that Santa wouldn’t think my son was a miscreant.
Noah does not like competition, which means he doesn’t play any sports. Nor is he interested in games, including the innocuous variety like Candy Land and Sorry! Instead, he prefers to spend his time outdoors, rummaging for bugs in the garden or swinging in the hammock.
I admit, for a long time I tried to make Noah into someone different. “Why doesn’t he like soccer or tee-ball like normal kids?” I’d lament to my husband. “What kind of kid can identify a Bigtooth Aspen? That’s just weird. How’s he going to make any friends if all he talks about are Norway Spruce and beaver tail cactus all day?”
Now before you write me off as a big fat jerk of a parent, let me explain. I wanted Noah to be “normal” because I was afraid. I worried kindergarteners wouldn’t want to be friends with a kid who collected succulents. I worried he wouldn’t fit in if he didn’t play sports or couldn’t converse about Bakugans. I was afraid he would be seen as a misfit, rejected for his uniqueness and mocked for his gifts.
Over time, though, I have learned two things the hard way. One: that Noah is vastly more equipped to survive and thrive than I ever imagined. And two: that it wasn’t my place to mold him into the person I wanted him to be anyway.
“The hardest part of being a parent may be learning to live with the fact that there are so many things we simply can’t control, so much of the journey that is not our doing at all,” writes Katrina Kenison in The Gift of an Ordinary Day. “We may tend the garden for a while, take a brief turn upon the land, nurture the children delivered in our arms, but in truth we possess none of these things, nor can we write any life story but our own.”
Clearly I let fear dominate. Clearly I tried to write what I thought would be the best story for Noah, instead of trusting that he could write his own. Not only did I not have any faith in my son or in myself as a parent, I also didn’t trust God to pave a proper path.
As it turned out, Instead of being mocked for his love of succulents, Noah became known as “the kid who knows a lot about plants.” Rather than Legos and superhero figures, his friends gave him potted cactus and aloe as birthday gifts. And while he’s not on the soccer or baseball or football team, and he prefers katydids to kickball, Noah has carved out a comfortable and right place for himself in elementary school society nonetheless.
As for me, I’m still learning how to guide and help shape my children without controlling and manipulating them into who I think they need to be. Thankfully my kids are gifted teachers…and they have a whole lot of patience with me.
I can’t recommend Katrina Kenison’s lovely book The Gift of an Ordinary Day enough. Not only is she a brilliant, lyrical writer, she also changed my views on “different.” And for that I am grateful.
Michelle is a Christian wife and mother of two originally from Massachusetts now living in Nebraska. She is a part-time writer, editor and fundraiser for Nebraska PBS/NPR. Michelle loves to write about how her family illuminates God's presence in her everyday life, and on finding (and keeping) faith in the everyday. Michelle enjoys reading, running and writing. Be sure to go visit her blog, Graceful, Faith in the Everyday.
Children, Family, Family Life, Parenting in Family Life
Reader Comments (19)
Oh, Michelle, this story could be written by my pen. We went through these things with our eldest too. He is now 14 and still marching to the beat of his own drum--but doing it rather well. What mom feared would leave him lonely and isolated has become his trademark and what the kids admire about him.
Wonderful story. Succulent, even ;).
Hi Michelle! Great post -- I love Katrina Kenison's books, too! I'm sure you have read her book before "the gift of an ordinary day", which is "Mitten Strings for God." She has a lovely attitude about motherhood, doesn't she? She reminds me of you!! Have a good, I mean ordinary, day, Michelle!! :-)
It's a scary world out there and we are always fearful our children won't fit it. You're right. The path God has laid out for our children looks totally foreign to us at times. We think we know what's best and how to mold them, but they are born with their own "bents" to quote Chuck Swindoll. Those bents are God given. I loved this. I'm going to have to get that book!
i love hearing about your children. and i would have been the very same had i had a child like noah - nervous about acceptance. i find myself trying to mold my younger to match my older....
Hi everyone, thanks for your comments! Susie, I have not yet read Mitten Strings for God, but it's on my list of must-reads. I do, however, read Katrina Kenison's blog, which is just as awesome and poignant as her book. Here is the link, if you are interested: http://www.katrinakenison.com/
And thank you everyone, for being so supportive in your comments about this post -- I was nervous about publishing this one...it is a hard thing to admit that you want(ed) to change your own child!
Lovely, as always - and I'm sure hard for you to both write and post. We ALL want to mold our children in ways that are not always in their best interests - and it is usually fear-based, isn't it? Noah sounds like an amazing kid - and he has an amazing mom, too. Parenting is a continuing process of letting go - being available to bind up wounds and provide opportunities - but basically, it's all about releasing, with love and integrity. SO hard to do sometimes. Congratulations for letting Noah be Noah.
This so reminds me of our first child. His first day of kidnergarden, he was morally outraged that the activity for the day was learning to cut string. "Cut string?" He shouted. "What would you like to do?" His teacher asked. He replied, "I was hoping to delve into natural sciences." This is true; the teacher wrote it down and read it to me during a parent-teacher conference. "His classmates love him," she said, "he reads the notes I send home to their parents for them."
"He reads?" Really--this was my first child, I was young. I didn't know he could read like that. "I don't think he's going to work out here, unless you want to skip him to the third grade." Said the teacher. Thus began our homeschool journey. It all worked out well. His passion is history. He wound up studying at Oxford (am I bragging? Yes), where he met his wife. They're now raising a little girl, whose favorite hang-out is the local library. She's not quite two yet, but she definitely has opinions on what she'll read. Her current interest is Puffer Fish. The beat goes on.
Sigh. Just sigh.Mine is stilling marching to his own beat, and the rest of us are just trying so hard to hear the music. Thank you for sharing this story--it's one that needs to be told. And retold.
Thanks for your comment at my place and your prayers--they mean the world to me.
And succulents? Seriously? That's the second time in about a week that I've read about succulents on friends' blogs. Which is kind of cool, actually. Blessings, Michelle.
Oh, Michelle, you echo the worries of so many parents. Why does my child not... ? But if my child did, then my child would be something other than who he or she is. Perfectly unique and uniquely him or her. What a sweet little boy. Most children do not find their passion so early in life. So glad he has. One day he may write a book on plants and make you some money :)
As always, Michelle, moving and motivating.
Having raised two 'non-cookie cutter' boys, this sounded and felt very familiar!
From the far end of the parenting spectrum (they're now 27 and 32), I can say they turned out to be exceptional and extraordinary human beings - and blessings beyond anything I could have imagined!
Keep trusting your son - and God - to reveal who he was created to be!
Michelle, I'm honored that a few lines in my book helped you appreciate the lessons your extraordinary son has to teach you. Every time I hesitate to tell the truth in my writing, and then take the plunge -- even when the truth does not make me look very good -- I find that instead of the judgment I fear, what comes in return is the support of other mothers who are struggling along with the very same doubts and fears and questions. It is such a relief to realize that we aren't alone after all. Your writing is beautiful and brave. And how wonderful that your boy has found a passion that feeds his soul.
Michelle, This is wonderful. Noah knows bigger words than I know. I've never even heard some of these terms. Keep up the good parenting. You are doing it right or he wouldn't feel secure in being who he is.
My middle son also marches to that different beat. When he was younger it was ADHD........ and now at 21 they are calling it "very high functioning aspergers." Whatever they call him... I called hiim love, he's my son.
I love this about Noah. I love that he loves plants; I'd like to call him little Thoreau, but I'm not sure that's a compliment.
My Aunt Eleanor was a plant maniac -- she loved them; when she died and we closed up her house in Virginia, I inherited her very healthy hen and chick, alive and well in "Papa's bean bowl."
I have the succulents and the bean bowl -- going on 17 years. I have given so many friends and strangers one of the chicks to start their own.
Plants are legacy.
Noah knows.
:)
Oh bless his heart, I think I love that kid! Can't you even wait to see what he grows into? I may need to check this book out....Thank you, and beautifully written post!
What a lovely blog!
I for one love Noah. How cool that he loves plants! My kids are SO different and it's so darn hard to just let them be who God created. Thanks for the honesty and insight as always.
Michelle, Noah must be delightful! Our son Drew has just turned 16 and has always marched to the beat of a different drummer. When he was 19 months old, he climbed in my lap with a phonics word book, open it up and and read, "Be brave." Amazed, I flipped a few pages and asked, "What's that?" He told me. Out of sequence, he could tell me about 90% of the 64 page book that had 256 words in sentences. He had had the book for one week. His vocabulary at two was over a 1000 words. At seven, he asked for a statue of Anubis (the Egyptian jackal-headed god of the dead) for Christmas. We took him to the Natural History Museum in D.C. that same year and he pointed from the balcony to an obscure dinosaur across the gallery and told us the proper name. He was right. He also told kids at school that he wanted to be a paleontologist, Last month for his birthday, he had friends over for a Mayan feast. They all dressed up as Mayans. He didn't think a picture of Mayan sacrificial blood letting would be appropriate, so he drew a large picture of Jesus as a Mayan, and wrote in Mayan pictograms, "Jesus, the maize of life." Now he'd rather be an anthropologist. Life is never dull!. It's not always easy, but it's never dull. Enjoy every minute with Noah. He is expressing his passion. That's what we should all want for our children.
I have the same reservations about my oldest. Mia is... different. She's a sponge for words, movies and random trivia. I found myself saying things like "Just walk like a normal person" or "just talk like a normal kid" and then realized that if she did things normally, she wouldn't be her. And I love HER.
This was a reminder to me to love the kid they are, not the one I designated before they were born.