Losing Your Head

The Bee Hero post brought up a topic I think about a lot: how not to transmit my hangups to my kids.

I consider myself to be less squeamish than average about squirmy and yucky things. I enjoyed dissecting animals in college, we kept a black widow spider as a pet for a couple years. But unlike my kids I don't run and pick up snakes, lizards and tarantulas.

Not that I find them yucky, I just don't want to be bitten.

And when we were in Maryland during the 17 year cicada hatching I started out with curiosity and interest and ended up being nauseated by them (or maybe that was just because I was in my first trimester with Greta).

But I tried not to betray this to Evelyn who was never without a beloved cicada in her hand.

I try to model calm interest in all things no matter how creepy, smelly, or yucky I privately think they are, such as the raccoon the kids skinned, the disemboweled squirrel they found a few weeks ago, or the squashed cane toad the size of a dinner plate that Clem, age two, was stroking, saying, "I pet him stinky frog!"

But sometimes a primordial revulsion takes over. When we came upon the head of a cedar waxwing while out on a walk, when Greta ran toward it hand outstretched, fingers eager to claim a treasure, I began to scream.

Yes, like the storied housewife who jumps on a chair at the sight of a mouse. "Aaaah! Aaah! Noooooo! Don't pick it up!" And when the hand closed on it I actually clutched my head in my hands and wailed.

So much for modeling calm interest.

Afterwards I had to laugh at myself. I always worry that my involuntary reactions will outweigh all my years of feigned or real calm interest, but the kids just looked at me like I was crazy.