Nurturing Creators

Nurturing Creators, Not Collectors

By Lisa Bennett
Web Exclusive, October 23, 2006

While driving my seven-year-old son and two friends home, a conversation breaks out in the back seat and I listen intently, as I always do, to what children say to each other when they forget a grown-up is listening.

"I have ten sets of Pokemon cards," says the first boy.

"I have six," says the second.

"I have six, too," adds my son.

"You have six sets?" friend number one repeats incredulously.

I don't know whether my son has six sets or six cards, and I'm not sure he knows, either. He has never cared enough about Pokemon to figure out how to play. All I know is that for the next ten minutes the backseat conversation has one refrain: "I have..." I have..." I have..."

My son silently stares out the window as the other boys compare notes on who has more and better cards, and I think—with relief—that Aidan is not a collector, like so many of the kids he knows. This comes as a welcome recognition because we, unlike almost all of his friends' parents, are not wealthy. When we moved to San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in America, we made a decision to devote the money we do have to a private school education for our two sons instead of trying to buy a house. I still feel good about this decision, although it has provided for some awkward moments, such as one time I was driving another one of Aidan's friends (who is the child of a good friend of mine) and they started comparing notes on houses.

"What is your house like?" asked my son's friend.

"We have one floor," Aidan answers, "I wish we had two. And we don't own it because my parents think houses here are too expensive."

"We have five floors," his friend said, "and we own it all. It's big, big, big!" Indeed, it is. I've seen it and never invited my friend, his mother, to our house because I'm still self-conscious about our economic differences.

I sometimes worry about what impact living in a community of people who can afford so much more than we will have on Aidan. But as I look in the car mirror and see him looking peacefully out the window, I think he seems to be doing just fine. After all, his bent is more as a creator than a collector: He can make up characters, stories and games all day long for days on end.

Then he spoke up—addressing me, though I suspect with another audience in mind. "Mama, when can I get more Pokemon cards?"

Surprised, I answered that he hadn't seemed interested in the game in a long time. "That's because I want more cards," he said.

Did he? Or was he just trying to get back in with his friends? And if so, what did that mean for the long haul as our children are so effectively indoctrinated into wanting more, more, more through advertising on television, online and on their clothing, and even, in some communities, on school buses—as public schools are forced to do anything they can to raise money. At 10, 13, 18 years old, will Aidan still be the same boy, driven by his own inner interests, or will he be in the backseat comparing notes, like his friends, about who has the latest, best possessions of the moment?

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That night at home, as he spends the hours before bedtime doing his usual thing —conjuring, inventing, imagining—the subject of Pokemon cards never comes up again, and I feel glad. But I'm still a little unsettled, wondering what he may have felt as odd-one-out with his Pokemon-collecting friends and, finally, I say what I'm thinking.

"You know," I begin, "some kids are collectors—"

"You mean they just want junk?" he asks.

"Maybe it's junk," I said. I'm thinking 'stuff.' They want lots and lots of stuff, while other kids are creators—they make things up, make wonderful things out of nothing at all."

"You," I continued, putting my arms around him, "are a creator, and that's my favorite kind of kid."

"Oh," he said, with a quiet smile and that little look he gets when he is feeling good about himself.

And for the moment, that was that. I was proud of him and glad I found a way to tell him. But still, I felt there was something sad about what transpired that day. For the truth, of course, is that every child is a creator first, but commercialism does war on children's inherent rich nature until they are reduced to counting their toys and competing with others based on nothing more interesting than what their parents can afford. Whether my son will be able to withstand this pressure and continue to follow his own creative vision remains to be seen. But one thing I know is that if he is to have any chance at all, then he, like every child, will need help; and so, for the moment, my partner and I have focused on three ways to help defend him against commercial influences.

First, we canceled our cable TV and are ordering DVDs from an online distributor only. This allows him to see select movies and TV shows (an important rendering, we think, of the stories he loves so much) but without the commercials.

Second, we've increased our efforts to take him on nature outings, nature being a place that makes competition for stuff suddenly feel very far away. Listen to kids on the beach or at the lake next time you're there. You're not likely to hear so much "I have. . ."

And finally, we're practicing one of the most important things I learned from Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein's "Raising a Resilient Child." We are consciously supporting one of our son's core strengths—his creativity—as much as possible, with the idea that if he builds a strong enough sense of self, he will be in the best possible position to withstand the commercial forces that will find their way to him one way or another as he matures. At least, we hope, he will find those influences far less satisfying in comparison to his own magnificent imagination.

Lisa Bennett's articles have appeared in The New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Newsday and St. Petersburg Times; Mademoiselle, American Health, Teaching Tolerance, New Parent and Harvard Review. Her research has been featured in Harper's Magazine, Atlantic Unbound and USA Today. She also has contributed to books, most recently: "A Place at the Table: Struggle for Equality in America," (Oxford University Press, 2002). She and her partner have two sons and live in San Francisco. You can contact Lisa Bennett at Lisa_P_Bennett@yahoo.com [1].