You know in the movies where the parents have a dream for their kid, but it’s not what the kid wants? Like, the parents have spent $100,000 on horseback riding lessons, but the kid really just wants to play the cello? And it’s always so obvious that the parents are in the wrong.
But it’s not always like that in real life.
For example, my little boy, Tadpole, was about to turn five. I kept pestering him about his birthday party. He picked a theme pretty quickly, pirates, but I could not get him to finalize a guest list. Did he want friends, family, both? His whole class, kids from the neighborhood, just a few friends? I was relentless.
Finally, he settled on two families from the neighborhood he wanted over. I made some pirate decorations and bought things for gift bags. We blew up some balloons and everything looked like it was going exactly as I planned.
Less than twenty-four hours before everyone was meant to arrive, Tadpole told me he didn’t want a birthday party.
But I wasn’t really listening. “Yes, you do. You just don’t want to clean. You’ll be really sad if you don’t have a party.”
“I don’t want a birthday party.”
“We’ve been talking about this party for a long time. You’re going to love it.”
“I don’t want it!”
And then my husband stepped in. “Ok, we can cancel it.”
And I thought there was going to be some sort of blow up, but there wasn’t. Tadpole really didn’t want a birthday party. He was perfectly content opening the gifts we gave him and eating a scoop of ice cream. The dream of a big, fancy party was mine, not his.
So, I finally asked Tadpole what he wanted for his birthday. The answer? Steak and crepes.
Happy Birthday little buddy. I’m glad you finally got what you wanted. I’ll try to be better at listening.
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