Family on Friday!!!
One of my favorite Monty Python sketches involves Eric Idle working in the coal mines and his playwright father, Graham Chapman, blows a gasket. After all, coal miners never get invited to galas or rub elbows with the intellectually elite in orgies of culture.
Before we any of us were old enough to go to school, we likely made such a library of works as to wear out a few magnets, and leave more than a few marks on table tops. However, hardly any of us had the aesthetic edge to warrant display beyond third grade.
That's a good thing, too. If all anyone did was beautify the world and distract with tales of false ones, the people that didn't starve to death would succumb to exposure to the elements.
No matter what it is that a person has a talent for and enjoys doing, the job exists. A child is a boundless avalanche of potential, cascading upon the world with terminal velocity in hopes of finding that perfect niche they can fit into. Still, it seems parents, more often than not, try to direct the avalanche's direction. As you can imagine, steering an avalanche has a narrow margin of success.
We can go on and on about the reasons parents try to tell their kids who to be (legacy, failed dreams, prestige, etc.), but I'd rather keep this post about parents realizing that when it comes to avalanches, get out of the way.
And if the bug decides to go work in the coal mines when she's older, I'll buy her a canary and ask myself if she's happy making a living doing something she loves.
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