It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon, and I was picking up my 3 1/2-year-old son from daycare. He got excited as soon as I walked in the room -- maybe because he was seeing me, maybe because he was now free to run about the building and break the rules; I'm not sure. But after offering me a glancing peck on the cheek he ran, as he always does, to his favorite "center:" the sprawling "large motor" area. He normally hops on a small plastic exercise bike and pedals for a personal record while I collect the papers and spare clothes from his locker and start the long process of begging him to come home with me now please can we get out of here don't you want to get home and help me start dinner now please just put your coat on so we can go. But this time he bypassed the bike and instead approached a large bin full of tangled plastic pipes in various primary colors. He grabbed a long, green one in his thick white fingers and smiled broadly. Then he took another piece of pipe -- a curved blue one -- and carefully pushed the end of it into the green pipe. He knew what he was doing.
"I'M GONNA MAKE A GUN, MOMMY."
My heart dropped. I knew the day was coming when he'd see something or hear something or learn something about guns, but I was hoping he would maybe please be 25 or 26 years old. I looked on in horrified silence as he circled the room, waving his creation in the air and aiming it toward doorways and piles of nap cots and construction paper-festooned bulletin boards.
"GUN! GUN! GUN! GUN! GUN!" he shouted enthusiastically.
As I sat there wishing I was a toddler whisperer or that I'd at least read some sort of book or article about how to talk to small children about guns, I told myself to say something productive that wouldn't make the situation worse. Finally, I willed my mouth to open and just form the simplest question I could muster:
Hmmmm. What's that for?
"FOR SQUIRTING APPLES," he replied gleefully. "SQUIRT, SQUIRT, SQUIRT."
My relief was immediate. I got in on the game, opening my mouth wide so he could launch imaginary apples into it. Posing questions about the variety of apple that was being "squirted" -- Are these Pink Ladies, Gala, or Honeycrisp? Laughing with my child at the thought of such a funny object. For my toddler, it turns out a gun can just be a silly toy that feeds hungry people a nutritious snack. I wanted to cry. I wanted to breathe a deep sign of relief. I wanted to take my little apple squirter and put him in a plastic time preservation bubble, crawl into it with him, and stay there forever.
I realized I'm starting to understand that horrible thing that nearly every parent hates and fears: my child's loss of innocence. I know he has to grow up and become worldly and learn to defend himself and develop deeper levels of empathy and read Kafka and get a driver's license, but there is just something so wonderful about innocence that makes my heart get big and my eyes get wet when I think about it. I love that he has it. I never want it to go away.
I love when my son waves hello to a passerby from his tricycle and later swells with pride in reporting how he met someone new. I don't want him to ever have to be afraid of saying hello to a neighbor on the sidewalk.
I love that my son gets genuinely enthusiastic about helping me bake cookies. I want him to always want to help me, and I never want anyone to tell him that cookies are bad for you or make you fat or tell him that it's not okay to be fat or to eat a cookie.
I love that my son loves things like popping soap bubbles, clearing the dinner table, and giving the contents of his piggy bank to sick children at the hospital because of how those acts make him or others feel inside. I never want him to not do those things, nor do I want him to ever do them for any other reason.
But I know all of these things will change, and probably sooner than I want them to. And in my mind, that's okay because those changes are part of growing up and becoming who you are.
But in my heart, I see the appeal of that bubble. I understand why helicopter parenting is so popular. Yes, it's overprotective. And yes, it's wrong. But maybe there's something admirable in wanting to preserve that childhood innocence for as long as possible. In covering their eyes during the scary scenes. In kissing their injuries. In believing that guns squirt apples.
Just give me a few more months of this, please?
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