"Sam, do you like my new dress?" asks our next door neighbor Ginny, age four. Sam, nearly three, responds, "Ginny, have you seen my new car? It talks." There you have it, folks. An essential difference between men and women illustrated perfectly by two preschoolers. Apparently, Ginny will often remark to her mother as she is choosing her attire, "Sam's going to love me in this." Ginny is not my little heartthrob's only admirer either. His friend Ellery wore a dress with flowers on it to Sam's birthday party because Sam "loves flowers." I've never heard Sam remark on all this dressing to please him other than to ask me once when we were about to meet Ginny, if she would "be wearing a dress." This comment would indicate that he notices more about what Ginny wears than he lets on. But who knows what he was really thinking? As with most men, he is oft times a mystery to me.
Sharing the story above has led me to remember a time when Sam and Ginny were in our living room and Sam wanted Ginny to watch Chuck the dump truck with him on television because, according to Sam, "Ginny loves Chuck." As I watched them sitting side by side on our sofa, I couldn't help but think of all the times I have pretended to be interested in some sporting event or another to impress a man. I wanted to ask her, "Are you really interested in Chuck, or are you just pretending? It's okay. You don't have to watch Chuck unless you just want to." I stopped myself because after all, they are just three and four years old. Although some gender differences are starting to emerge, they don't care about all this crazy gender stuff, and that's a good thing. Sam has been known to play "fashion show" with Ginny. And just because I'm not a huge fan of Chuck or baseball or football, that doesn't mean that Ginny won't be.
It was silly of me to worry that Ginny might be pretending to like the Chuck the truck show. Children Sam and Ginny's age show the world their true selves. They don't pretend. When do we lose this and why? Wouldn't it be better if we stayed true to ourselves as adults, too?
Maybe this is one of the reasons that small children's sweet little gestures are oh so sweet. You know that they mean what they say or do. For a while there, I would walk in our back yard and find loosely rolled pieces of paper. Pictures drawn on them in red crayon. A lady wearing a fancy dress. A picture of a swimming pool. Gifts from Ginny that she slid through the fence that separates our back yards. Treasures to me.
Sam recently decided that he wanted to feed the turtles, ducks, and fish that live in a man made lake near our neighborhood. He had fed them french fries, which they surprisingly really like, once before. On the day that we decided to go back and feed them again, Sam picked at his lunch. Just before we left the car to walk out to the lake, I asked Sam if he was sure he didn't want to eat any more of his chicken nuggets or french fries. He said no that "maybe they'd like it," meaning the animals. A generous gesture straight from a sweet little boy's heart.
Although we could perhaps learn from the pure, honest sweetness and generosity of children, in all fairness I must admit that learning to pretend can sometimes be a good thing. Twice now people have given Sam gifts, and he has told them he doesn't want them, creating awkward moments. And what if we never learned to share even when we really don't want to?
Okay, maybe a little pretending is a good thing, but overall, my wish for you, Sam and Ginny, is that you stay true to who you are, whoever you are. Who you are is a beautiful thing.
