Child stars
After school yesterday, Tin and I walked to the Soraparu playground where the other kids were playing and in comparison, he looked so tiny! Usually I don’t take him there because it is that time of day when the older kids are playing and they tend to be rough and tumble. A mother asked me how old Tin is and I said two and a half, and she said he looks like he’s barely old enough for school.
Perspective.
He’s in nursery school 4.5 hours a day and he ripped a book yesterday instead of napping and he’s small but getting sophisticated in his understanding of relationships and dynamics but still very unclear about where he is in relation to the rest of the world. He’s a toddler in other words.
I was reading an interesting article on child stars in the Times Picayune this morning written by Stephen Whitty – I could not find it online to repost – but he speaks about interviewing everyone from Jodie Foster to Anne Hathaway and the take away is this, there’s no reason to advance, allow, or be complicit in making your child a star – Q.E.D. Michael Jackson. Their talent will surface and will find it’s own path, your job as a parent is to make sure they have a childhood, because lord knows, when you grow old, you always have the fairy existence of your childhood to think back on.