Kids Are Boring - NOT!

The other day I overheard a young man saying that he didn’t want to have kids because they’re so boring. Boring? Kids?? I don’t know whose kids he had been hanging around with, but it certainly wasn’t my kids. There are lots of words you could use to describe my children – frustrating, infuriating, hilarious, energetic, mystifying, fascinating, unruly, and disobedient all spring to mind – but boring is certainly not one of them.

Is it boring to listen to a 3-year-old throw words he’s learned into a random conversation? Because my son does that all the time. Last night, he was racing around the room at top speed and he stopped in front of me just long enough to announce, “Mama, I’m a go-getter!” before tearing off again. Later that night he was being silly and falling over and told me that he had just “capsized.” Is it boring to try to figure out what a 1-1/2-year-old who doesn’t really talk yet means by her babbles? My daughter’s usual conversation is, “Tucka tucka tucka tucka,” but occasionally she’ll throw a word like “’iger” (while patting a stuffed tiger), “’tar” (while pointing at a star-shaped cookie), “hat” (while donning a yellow hard hat), or “’ook” (while handing me a book) into the mix. How could that possibly be construed as boring?

And then there’s the creative use of toys. Hand an adult a cardboard box and he’ll use it for something boring like storing file folders or putting winter clothes in the attic. Hand it to a child and it will be magically transformed into a spaceship or a pirate ship or a castle.

 

Give an adult an empty paper towel tube and he’ll throw it in the trash, but give it to a child and it’s a trumpet or a telescope or a drumstick. Send an adult out in the snow and after he shovels the driveway, it won’t occur to him to do anything other than come back inside. Send a kid out there and he’ll be climbing up the biggest snowbank he can find, making snow angels, building a snowman, starting snowball fights with the neighbors’ kids, and poking icy patches with a big stick.

Who would you rather hang out with, the child who can make fun out of anything, or the adult? I know which one sounds boring to me. And it’s not the one who eats spaghetti with a fork.