Children at Play
By Aly Prades
@alyprades
In our house, the tooth fairy delivers two gifts: one for the recently de-toothed child and one for the other sibling. Before you roll your eyes and assume I—ahem, I mean the tooth fairy—can’t deal with the big emotions of a left-out child, hear me out.
The tooth fairy used to bring one blue raspberry ring pop for one smooth-gummed individual, but the other child, of course, would get sad and mopey. This is no surprise. What did surprise me, however, is that the lucky toothless child would, without fail, give up her ring pop to the stubborn-toothed child, or at the very least share most of it.
The tooth fairy was saddened by this. While she advocates sharing and was warmed by the children’s generosity, she wanted the ring pop recipient to enjoy her gift, all to herself.
In the end, the tooth fairy decided to reward both children for their giving spirits and now delivers both a blue raspberry and a berry blast ring pop.
Okay, okay, so maybe I—I mean, the tooth fairy—actually can’t deal and am guilty of a teensy bit of overcorrection.
***
Moving boxes litter the floors of our new house, waiting to be unpacked. One-by-one I open each box, finding new homes for all of our belongings. Late in the afternoon, I stumble upon a bin my parents saved for me. I pull out high school yearbooks, my dog-eared Babysitters Club collection, and gymnastics ribbons. Finally, I unearth a craft of card stock in the shape of a present, with the words "creative writing" written in my squiggly, second-grade cursive, or as my daughter calls “crochet.”
Holding it, I'm transported to my Sunday School class, where we learned that gifts and talents come from God and should be stewarded well; shared and used for the benefit of others.
I took the idea of stewardship, especially of my writing and ideas, to heart.
I wrote cards to my grandmother, essays to get good grades. When I got older, I wrote grants to raise funds for causes I was passionate about, devotionals to glorify God, OCD recovery stories to help others.
But over the years, my desire to steward well morphed into a fear of squandering. An idea for a blog post became an obligation. Unfinished essay drafts haunted me while I sipped lavender lattes with friends or sang “You are my sunshine” to my daughter for the seventh time in a row. I couldn’t open my notebook without a pit of dread pounding behind my ribcage. My gift of writing became an expectation that could not be separated from the pressure to perform.
The Sunday School teachers never said this, but my young brain with undiagnosed OCD (and a penchant for perfectionism) turned stewardship into a threat: don’t mess up, be grateful, give your gifts in service to others, don’t use it for your own personal gain, be self-sacrificing.
Lay it all down, or lose it.
***
My eight-year-old son crouches over art paper in the living room, hardwood biting into his knees, marker in hand, tongue lightly pressing his upper lip in concentration. Two or three Pokémon handbooks are fanned out around him in a semicircle. He writes, checks his work against the handbooks, writes some more, then adds in details—a geometric tail to Pikachu, darker shading for Umbreon. His Pokémon are organized by type—ground, fairy, fire, dark. Finally, he stacks the papers, taps them together, staples his book, and beams.
My six-year-old daughter is surrounded by abandoned paper scraps, pencils, marker tops, and kinetic foam. She’s humming, vibrating with the energy of creation. Her whole body is alive. You would think she’s painting the Mona Lisa and not sewing fluff into two paper towels to make a decorative pillow for the fun of it.
My kids are not concerned with stewarding their creative gifts.
They are simply children at play.
***
In February, I designed a challenge for myself: do a cold plunge in our nearby lake, photograph my plunge as reference for a watercolor painting, recreate the scene in watercolor, and finally write a poem to capture my thoughts of the day: plunge / paint / poem.
I went into the challenge fully expecting to transfer my creative knowledge from years of writing to the task of painting. The opposite happened.
Because painting is not my gift, I felt no pressure to perform a certain way.
I swirled the colors on my watercolor palette and watched as they blended. I did not fear the blank watercolor page like I feared my writing journal. Lakes and trees and clouds emerged from my brush like magic.
Everything felt like a bonus, a gift.
Until I started sharing my paintings with others.
“Beautiful!” they replied to my shock.
“You are so talented!”
No, no, no, I protested inwardly, not really sure why the intended compliment felt like an accusation.
I wanted painting to be for fun. For me.
If painting is another talent—a gift—that would mean I’m responsible to use it in a certain way.
No, I rejected the insinuation. I am not talented; I am not a painter. I am a person painting. A child at play.
***
A few months ago, my daughter came home from kindergarten with a wad of dollar bills.
“Where did you get that?” I asked in a tone sharper than I meant.
“My friend gave it to me,” she replied as she twirled around the living room, ignoring my requests to hang her backpack and put her pink sneakers on the shoe rack.
“Why?”
“Because I’m his friend.”
Puzzled, I explained to my daughter that I needed to tell her classmate’s dad. He needed to know his son was giving away cold hard cash on the playground.
When I talked to the boy’s dad a few days later, the full story came out.
The five-year-old had given away his entire cache of birthday money to his kindergarten friends, in installments of $5, $7, and $11, handing out around $60 in total.
“No need to give it back,” his dad told me. “This was a learning lesson.”
A group of kinder parents had gathered to listen to his explanation. Collectively, we agreed his actions were cute, but something didn’t sit right with me.
I admired his generosity, but felt sad he didn’t enjoy the gift for himself, even if he did delight in the giving. It was the tooth fairy conundrum all over again.
Should a gift be completely relinquished to others? All of it? Always?
***
The definition of a steward is “one employed in a large household or estate to manage domestic concerns (such as the supervision of servants, collection of rents, and keeping of accounts.)”
I read this and my jaw dropped. Maybe there’s something faulty with my obsession with stewardship. What if I’ve spent so long trying to be a good steward, I’ve missed out on being a child?
A child isn’t meant to manage or control. A child has responsibilities, yes. But as a member of the household and family, the child also enjoys the gifts of the household.
***
The three of us gather at the kitchen table. My son draws Pokémon, my daughter paints rainbows with sparkly dot paints, I pull up my latest lake photo from my plunge to paint.
My son and I press our tongues against our top lips, while my daughter’s tongue finds the gap of her recently removed top tooth.
I smile to myself as I think about the blue raspberry and berry blast ring pops hiding in my closet, waiting for the hush of night to be delivered.
My son marks, my daughter dabs, and I swirl paint.
We are children at play.
Guest essay written by Aly Prades. Aly is a former ESL writing professor and current seeker of magic in the margins. She lives in North Idaho with her husband and two kids. She loves to craft words, arts and crafts used to make her skin crawl, but now she’s experimenting with watercolor and having … fun … gasp. She is a foodie who hates cooking and is always dancing the line between thoughtful introspection and overthinking. Her words have been featured on Listen to Your Mother–Spokane, Coffee and Crumbs, and the International OCD Foundation website. You can read more about her experience of growing up with undiagnosed OCD, as well as her poetry, newsletters, and pep talks on her Substack, where she offers many OCD recovery resources.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.