Walking and Talking

One never knows why things occur. I noticed when my daughter was 3 that I talked with her a lot less than the other people I was hanging out with. I attributed that to our gender differences (that year I hung out with moms mostly, (my main pal, a stay at home dad, having moved to the supposedly beautiful Madison , Wisconsin, when my daughter was 2)). I called my parenting "Parenting by Following Around" which was we'd just walk around our town, and I'd mostly follow behind and offer assistance as needed and a few explanations and answer any questions. And like any good three year old (or thereabouts) she had what seemed to be like a huge number of questions. But when I'd walk with the moms, they'd be talking like twice as much as I. I didn't notice that I was ignoring questions, but figured it was some mysterious gender difference here the moms somehow encouraged more conversation or gave more open ended responses instead of trying to scale down some quantum mechanics answer to why the sky is blue. But it seemed fine, and we had a lot of fun walking around town.

However, now I'm with a different child, and I have found that now my parenting is called "Parenting by Conversation." But what has changed? Not my gender. We have less time, so we don't spend so many hours walking around the town (have to rush to school, rush again to school, rush home for homework, etc.) (I'm using "rush" here somewhat loosely - if you actually saw us walking home, you'd pass us.) And my son doesn't walk nearly as much as his sister did at the same age. But oh my, we talk a lot. He does the "why" thing that you read about. (Which I always imagined would be a fun challenge, and it is right up until your brain runs out of neurotransmitters or whatever that is.) He has me tell stories over and over, and tells me stories over and over. We can spend literally hours just talking about airplanes, baby airplanes, momma airplanes, daddy airplanes, all the airplanes we like and all the airplanes we don't like; the airplanes traveling and needing to use the potty and then the planes reading a book, etc. etc. etc.

So it seems that some things vary because the children themselves are different. If you follow the connection to the child you have, you'll end up meeting the specific needs they have without necessarily even knowing what that need is. You just know the days are good, that the child mostly chooses to follow the routine they have, that your gut is relaxed. And the system (not my system, but the system of human life) works. It is a great pleasure to partake in.

(The "Parenting by Following Around" phrase was a take off on the slogan used by the head of my department at work for years, "Management by Walking Around" - he'd just walk around and see people in the hall and find out what was going and and what problems there were).