My pace as a working mother with three children in three distinct developmental stages (elementary, middle and high school) is, uh, exhilarating might be the polite word! My experience is not unique and I see my reality mirrored in the lives of many of the adults with whom I partner as a program director. Our day is often juggling many work and personal tasks, doing much, but often feeling behind.
There is an opportunity for children to teach us. Children are not hampered by clocks. Their pace is gauged by their engagement in the moment. Summer is an eternity to a child and a wink to an adult (so is nap time). They have not yet learned to mark the seasons by calendar - memory is fresh for them, so each re-visited experience of time and place is familiar but not stale. When we observe a child stopping, they are actually starting a journey.
It is deeply moving to leave at the end of the day and observe parents match their pace to their child's - this often looks like a slow walk through the Big Garden examining the new daffodils or picking peas. Two year olds explore with curiosity, three year olds with wonder, and four year olds may exclaim "Daffodils, I remember these!" Adults have the opportunity to "borrow the child's eyes" and examine the miracle of green and yellow, the precise sculptural beauty of the daffodil. This is so difficult when we are juggling a lunch box and the pressing schedule of night time chores that wait for us. How do we stop our adult clocks and function at the child's rhythm?
It was my privilege to march for Peace on Cesar Chavez Day 2012 in an event designed and lead by Alternatives in Action youth in response to the murder of children and teens in Oakland. My delight when gathering at Life Academy was to spy my good friend Ella intently observing the Aztec Dancers. She had come with her brother, Grayson, and mom, Wyeth, to support the march for Peace. It is amazing to extrapolate Ella's thought on this day, participating in a march from the viewpoint of 30 inches. Did Ella know today was about peace? What does peace mean to a three year old? Did she feel that this was both a celebration of life (music, dancing, food) and a mourning for those who passed too soon (chants, acknowledgement)? Was this just a sea of knees and balloons in the sky? Maybe what Ella knows is the energy of a group of people dedicated to common cause and gathering peacefully to urgently communicate. Sort of like our PAC meetings or PTSA meetings or the act of voting, but a little different, because the frame was youth-driven and Ella got to see that and that's where she will be in a mere 10 years.
We must know others and allow others to know ourselves. The investment is one of time, but it is also one of presence. Children are born with the full gift of living in the moment and have much to teach us.
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