I was walking Bonn to school this morning when he decided to
ran ahead of me. With that, his shoe flew off to the side of the street with its
insole coming out. Bonn’s face became really distraught as he called out to me.
“ Mommy, Mommy. My shoe!”. I hurriedly picked up the shoe and the separated shoe
sole. And then I heard him cry out “ Oh No!
I will never go to school ever again.”……..
“Because of the shoe?”, I asked. “ But Mommy is gonna fix
it, see?” I went up to him and showed him how to stick
back the inner sole into the shoe and then I placed it back on his right foot. “
but it’s broken, Mommy…I’m never ever going to school again.” I looked him
straight to his face with all the reassurance I can muster and told him. “ It’s not broken anymore, Mommy
fixed it.” He looked back with uncertainty as if he doesn’t believe me. “it’s
broken, Mommy, it’s broken.” “Now, try
to walk….” . He stepped forward slowly and went back to his happy self, hopping
merrily off to school as I followed right behind him.
I’m not sure if he has forgotten the incident by now but it
has surely got me to thinking and writing. First, I wonder how he came to the
conclusion that a broken shoe will stop him from attending his pre-school
classes. Well, that would probably be easy as he needs his shoes to walk to
school but what got to me were the words “never ever”. Ok, at this point, most
of you would probably stop me and say, stop overthinking, it was just child
talk. Still, it bothered me. Am I lacking in instilling in my child the notion
of putting less value on material things and more on important stuff like
learning, joy, kindness, thoughtfulness, …you know all the real good values. How
could his world fall apart over a broken shoe? Is this a vision of things to
come? I can’t remove the picture of his crestfallen face out of my mind.
Or maybe its just a case of ensuring next time I put aside budget
concerns in buying his personal stuff and really ensure high quality ones. I
always try to be in the middle, you know like that EQ diaper commercial,
quality without the added expense. Still, I wonder.. . should I learn something more from this incident/
should I double time in telling him stories of children poorer than him than
goes to school barefooted. He is only 3 years old, would he understand that? Maybe more VALUES stories vs Disney junior adventures?
It’s nearly time to pick him up from school so I should put
the keyboards to rest now. I need to review my parenting strategy again and be
always vigilant. If things need to be corrected, it has to be done sooner than
later.
