Make A Wish (Project 358: Day 15)

Day 15: Make a Wish

Yesterday was what I consider to be the perfect Winter day: bright sun, blue sky, puffy white clouds, and air so cool and crisp you almost wish you could take a bite out of it. We took a walk with the kids early in the day and about halfway through, Evan decided that he wanted to take his shirt off. Elinor quickly followed suit. Immediately, I put up a weak protest, "Come on, guys, leave your shirts on," but was (not surprisingly) ignored. My eyes darted around nervously, trying to glimpse the expressions of passersby. God, what must people think of me, letting my children run around half naked on a Winter's day! I realized in that moment why I felt so uncomfortable about my children taking their shirts off. I was not worried about them being too cold. My children are perfectly capable of determining whether or not they are comfortable and will most certainly let me know when they are not. No, my discomfort came from my fear of people thinking poorly of me, my fear of being judged, of being deemed a "bad mother." When I realized this, I put away any notion of trying to get my children clothed again and simply enjoyed watching their beautiful young bodies running and dancing with joy, the sun warming their soft, pale skin.

If I have one wish for my children it is that they never feel as though they have to be anything other than themselves. I don't want them to care what other people think of them! Oh, I want them to be kind, of course. That goes without saying. But I don't want them to ever feel that they have to change who they are in order to please someone else. Now, I figure the only chance I have of giving them this gift of confidence and self-worth is by modeling it to them through my own actions. This is a tall order. While I am worlds more confident now than I was throughout my teens and early (to mid-) 20s, I am still plagued with self-doubt and insecurity; these fears are deep-seated. And so I start small. Change in action can only occur after successful change of thought patterns. Exercise One: let the children run around half-naked, outside on a Winter's day. Take a photo. Post said photo on the internet. And don't give a damn what people have to say about it!