Your Kid's Passion Isn't Yours to Find

You don’t have to expose them to everything or find their spark for them.

Last week, my oldest child (almost 19 and a licensed private pilot) flew my 13-year-old and me to Nantucket.

I shared it on Instagram Stories, because wasn’t he a toddler pointing at airplanes from his stroller like, yesterday? When did he go from turning his entire room into a Lego airport to landing a real plane in a real airport, with Sloane and me as his passengers? To say it was mind-blowing is a huge understatement.

This was my third time flying with Nate as the pilot, and the wow factor has not dulled, even a little. This was Sloane’s first time flying with him, and she was nervous. But the second she settled into the seat next to him, and he calmly and confidently started explaining what he was doing as he taxied down the runway, I watched her settle in, and then light up with so much excitement as we took off into the sky and he pointed out our little town below us. He tilted the plane just so she could see the bright red rubber track behind her elementary school, and I knew instantly that this was a core memory for her.

When I shared my experience on Instagram, the responses were overwhelming. There was so much excitement and support for us, which really felt good, considering this isn’t the most relatable thing one can share on the internet.

But mostly, parents wanted to know the answer to the same two questions: How did you help him find his “thing” so early? And do your other kids have “a thing” too?

Underneath those questions, I heard the one we all ask ourselves: is my kid behind?

We see our neighbor’s kid making the top tier club team and think, “Oh shit. My kid is just sitting on the floor playing Lego.”

Or your sister’s kid wins some art award in second grade and you feel it in your stomach: “Oops. Should I have put my kids in art lessons?”

“If I don’t expose them to everything young, how will they ever find their thing?”

(I wrote more on this here, and as a paid sub, you have full access.)

I don’t think it’s my job to find my kid’s passion, and I really don’t think it’s yours either. I totally get why we all feel like that’s exactly what we’re supposed to be doing, but it’s not.

I was never trying to build a specific outcome for Nate or my girls, but I was very intentionally holding onto their time, because I wanted it to belong to them. I wanted them to mess around in the backyard and at the park. I wanted them to get bored and figure out what to do. And while Nate’s pilot’s license came out of that time, it was never the point of it.

“Find your passion” is so much pressure to put on a little kid, and it’s just as much pressure to put on yourself, and for what? The truth is, I didn’t find my own thing until ten years ago, and I’m 48. I’m so glad I didn’t spend all those years walking around feeling like I was behind.

Behind the paywall:

• Whether my other two kids have “a thing,” and the one rule I held firm on with all three.

• Exactly what we did with Nate, from library books to his pilot’s license, and the tradeoff that paid for it.

• The exact formula I give the parents who ask about their truck obsessed four year old or their hockey kid, and what it might look like down the road.