"Mom will you please watch the Star Wars movies with me?"
My youngest son's request caught me off guard. I abhor futuristic shoot em' up films and detest Darth Vader, whose venomous presence terrified me as a child.
But the wonder of Jedi fighters in faraway galaxies transports my 11-year-old son, Sammy, into a world of excitement. He recites lines from the movies and treasures a Yoda-sized walking stick found in the woods. He plays Star Wars Monopoly and Star Wars Risk and lines up Star Wars LEGO ships for battle on our living room floor.
So his request wasn't a casual invite - it was a formal invitation into his world.
Despite my low tolerance for action-packed films, I cringed and replied., "Sure, Sammy, I'll watch the movies with you."
Then I chewed my nails.
Like many, I'm the proud parent of two very different children. My outside-the-box oldest son thinks creatively, as I do. Sammy, on the other hand, once questioned why the convenience store Quik Trip misspells its name. His black-and-white thinking befuddles and challenges me.
When I purchased three pairs of cowboy boots years ago, my oldest strutted tall. Sammy balked. Too many people stared when we moseyed by in our boots.
I gave up on the boots and started listening. What I heard dared me to step out of my comfort zone and into the heart of my child - where an athlete longed to emerge, a technical mind wanted to grow and a tender boy needed to live tough.
I took some deep breaths and slowly made changes. When seasonal sports overwhelmed my afternoon teaching schedule, we signed up for weekend belaying classes at an indoor climbing gym. When Sammy unburied a forgotten gift called Slime Science, I kept it closed until a Sunday evening allowed time for grotesque experiments on my kitchen floor. And when he asked me to watch the Star Wars movies, I agreed - with a compromise. He had to tell me when to cover my eyes.
Schreer, Susan. "Stick Together." Tweenages April/ May 2006: 2.