If I ever get to actually wanting to have children, it will be in great part due to the influence of Megan, my roommate in France.
I love Megan’s kids so much. It’s the personality in each of them. Distinct and new. They present their small sense of self to me and we are both curious: what is this? How does this get done? What’s funny and what is sad?
The youngest is trying to dance and a purple tutu on, and if I spend too long looking away she stops dancing and stares me down with squinted eyes. The middle child is trying to figure herself out: she’s staring in the mirror as she eats cucumber slices. The oldest is reading Harry Potter in French and occasionally peaks over the table at me, watching what I do. Looking for clues.
I adore how they present themselves, so curious and figuring it out. I love seeing the world through their eyes. Megan doesn’t have a TV and the children are only occasionally allowed movies on her laptop. I believe it’s because of this that they so easily entertain themselves, enjoying using their imagination with dolls and paints.
Treating Kids like Little Adults
Time around children of any age usually exhausts and annoys me. Sure, the kids have their times where they are being, well, children, but on the whole I see Megan love them fairly and sincerely. And with a lot of trust. She never lies to her children, even when it would be easy. She isn’t constantly tense with them: she does not treat them like glass. Megan sees her kids as people, little adults in training, and masterfully let’s them grow into themselves with her occasional helping hand. Most surprising to experience was to have her, as a mother of three, let me have influence on her kids. That’s never happened before. I have been made to feel inferior, ignorant, and even a negative influence (i.e. my vegetarian phase) when I’m around someone else’s kids. As if I don’t have anything to contribute unless I’m a mother myself.
But with Megan I have been an active participant in these children’s lives. From baking to playing to reading. After months with them I enjoy having them around and miss them when they are gone.
Megan has remained true neutral on the subject of kids, but by example I’ve not just learned but experienced the raising and loving of children in a way that looked like it could mean love. That it might take sacrifice but it wouldn’t kill me.