Once upon a time I knew everything.
Or at least my sons thought so.
They could ask me any question, [Why are clouds white? How do you make a pretzel? Is Daddy famous?] and I could give them a simple answer. Everyone was happy.
Sadly, my reign as a genius did not last.
As they grew older, they came to realize that I didn’t know quite everything, but I still knew an awful lot and could give them a satisfactory answer to most questions. [Why can’t I see a T-Rex at the zoo? Why does ice float? Why is Benjamin Franklin famous?]
Unfortunately, the day came when they began to suspect that I didn’t know much at all about certain things. In fact, on some subjects (seventh-grade fashion trends, for instance) I was all but useless as a source of reliable information.
Next they no longer found it amusing when I gave them ridiculous answers to questions when I didn’t know the real answer. [insert eye roll here] Sigh.
Fortunately, I was never demoted to total idiot. Maybe it was because I substituted at their high school and I could give a lesson in algebra or physics, or maybe it was the fact that I could still whup their butts in any word game. Nevertheless, their estimation of my intellectual abilities continued to plummet as the list of subjects they knew better than to ask me about continued to grow.
I have now reached yet another stage in this progression:
Not only are my sons are taking classes in subjects I know nothing about, things like micro-economics, abnormal psychology and structural kinesiology, they are become experts in some of them.
In fact, son #1 is currently serving as a tutor for first-semester anatomy students. (My knowledge of anatomy,on the other hand, consists of words commonly used in crossword puzzles, such as ‘ulna’ or ‘iris’.)
I am both humbled and elated by this: humbled because I can claim no responsibility for their areas of expertise, and elated because my sons are growing and succeeding in the areas they have chosen to pursue.
My sons will never again regard me as a genius.
And that’s OK. They have their areas of expertise and I have mine. They still call me for help on certain topics, and sometimes I call them when I need theirs. (Like when I want to understand my MRI results.)
It’s a wonderful thing to watch my children grow up and become independent–even when that means I become (relatively) obsolete. [That is the main goal of parents, after all–to work themselves out of the job.]
So, instead of feeling depressed because of all the areas where my sons’ knowledge surpasses my own, I will delight that I now have an expert to call upon when I need to.
And anyway, I can still whup their butt in word games.