Both my husband and I are somewhat technical types.
We are big on gadgets. He’s a sound recordist and mixer. I fly airplanes. We are both fascinated by how things work.
And we both agree that, from a technical standpoint, watching our son develop is one of the most remarkable things we have ever witnessed.
We all love our children truly, madly and deeply. Each milestone they reach – the first smile, step, word – makes our heart swell with wonder and gratitude. But imagine, just for a moment, that you could put aside your emotional investment in your child and, for purely scientific purposes, observe it learn and develop.
Would you not be blown away by the sheer width, depth and breadth of knowledge and skills that this creature, this fledgling human adult, must acquire on the path to maturity?
The thing about parenting – the thing that makes it such an all-consuming, indescribably wonderful endeavor - is that it provides you with knowledge you never even knew you lacked.
I didn’t know so many things before Graham was born.
I didn’t think about the complex physicality of the human body and how our arms and legs, fingers and toes must be trained to work in synchronicity to master balance and movement.
I never really considered that our every mode of communication - from looks and smiles and winks to cries and grunts and words are part of an elaborate system of socialization that must learned, step by painstaking step.
I knew – I had been told – that having a child would inspire musings on life and love and miracles. But I had always seen human beings as the sum of their parts.
I never knew that the parts themselves could hold me in their thrall. That the dear, wee arms and legs and eyes and ears and lips, as they grew and strengthened and found their purpose, would each reveal itself as a separate and technically perfect miracle.
There are so many reasons to have children. Many of them are articulated by writers and poets every day and many of them go without saying.
But for someone like me, someone who hungers for technical knowledge, who finds beauty and comfort in order and science and nature and how things work, watching my son grow and observing the glorious complexity and functionality of the body he inhabits, has been an unexpected revelation.
