I always have been particularly careful of my little boy - my scrawny, skinny, knock-kneed, wheat-allergic, accident-prone sweetheart of a child. I was convinced the world would chew him up and spit him out if I let him too far out of my sight.
He was too open-faced and honest in his approach to the world. He was too vulnerable, I thought, too equally free with his fears and his joys, without a dissembling bone in his body. He was, I feared, minced meat for the masses.
But at some point I had to start letting go, even if it meant just letting him go down the street. We had been working hard to give him the tools he'd need to survive in the world. He wasn't proficient in their use yet, but he wasn't going to be if we didn't let him go out and try a few things. If we didn't risk the yang of letting him get hurt or disappointed, he'd never have a chance to experience the yin of joy and success either.
Ranging farther afield, he began to make friends with other boys in the neighborhood. I was ready for him to be rejected. He was still too open and friendly, I thought, the kind of nice kid bound for disappointment when rougher boys found him an easy target.
I'm glad I kept those thoughts to myself.
He was immediately embraced by the neighborhood kids, taken for a boy genius, a sort of Jimmy Neutron whose ideas filled their imaginations and whose engaging friendliness was infectious. Soon they were trying to make soda bottle racers with baking soda and vinegar, flying plastic bag kites in the street, digging gold mines in the yard, and zooming remote-controlled helicopters onto our roof. In the few short weeks since my son found his social legs, our street has become lousy with kids on bicycles, knocking on our door looking for him, and the occasional stray unknown child walking through our house looking for a glass of water.
We are, it suddenly seems, living in a Little Rascals world of spontaneous ideas, inventions and adventures. And just when I thought it couldn't get any more delightful, my son told me about Popsicles for the poor.
"Popsicles for the poor?" I asked, as I finished putting dinner on the table.
"Yep," he replied. "We're going to make ice creatures and sell them and give the money to the poor."
My son had recently made his new friends some of his special "ice creatures" - frozen concoctions, usually of water and lemon juice, or other fruit juices with small (and clean) plastic creatures embedded in them for a Cracker Jacklike surprise. His sisters wrinkled their noses at a couple of his recipes. One was water with crushed Halloween candy corns in it, and another featured water and crushed SweetTarts - ice cube candy!
I was concerned about choking hazards in food.
His friends, however, were delighted. Soon he had orders pouring in. I managed to persuade him to provide the "creatures" separately. The treats became so popular that one of his more civic-minded friends suggested they sell them for 50 cents each and donate the money from the "ice creatures" to the poor.
My son thought this was a dandy idea and immediately set about organizing his new business. He developed a flow chart of his new distributorship on the computer, illustrating who was in charge of sales and marketing, who distributed the goods and who collected the money. Soon bicycles were whizzing all about the neighborhood, and everyone knew what Ice Creatures were. Within a couple of weeks, the boys had raised about $10 for charity.
Then the weather turned cold. My entrepreneurial son pondered this change of events only briefly before deciding to sell hot chocolate. His friends think this is a fine idea, and the bicycle and skateboard hot chocolate service is under way.
I know in many places people bemoan the loss of community, complaining about children so overscheduled they never have time to be children. For whatever wonderful reasons, and to my son and his friends' wonderful benefit, that doesn't seem to be the case in our neighborhood. Whatever magic is worked here is a joy to watch.
But it's a carefully nurtured magic, born of family involvement and trust, of encouraged responsibility and kindness. It's also the kind of magic that can only happen when children are given time - not constant, aimless, unsupervised time, but a gentle, unhurried be-home-before-dark time.
Time to ride bikes and make friends after school and on weekends; time to talk about everything and nothing while sitting on a driveway and enjoying Popsicles (or hot chocolate); time to plan and create and invent and adventure in safe places where everyone looks out for them, but where no one gets in their way.
- Theresa Willingham writes occasionally for the Times about homeschooling. She lives in Odessa. Guest columnists write their own views on subjects they choose, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.
