My Childhood Described in One Word…

This morning I asked my students to describe their childhood in one word. It is not something I would have asked them at the start of the year because they did not trust me yet, and I recognize that this can be an inquiry that makes a person vulnerable in their response.

It brought me joy when kids would describe their childhood as, “outside,” indicating they spent a lot of time outdoors playing when they were younger. It cracked me up when they described their childhood as, “weird,” or, “wild,” or even, “interesting.” I felt relieved when some told me their childhoods were, “normal,” or, “uneventful,” or even, “boring,” because that meant that nothing bad had happened to them that stuck out in their memory. My heart hurt for the ones who would reply, often quietly, or with a tone of irony meant to convey that it wasn’t funny at all, that their childhood was, “tough,” or, “confusing,” or sometimes, “traumatizing.”

As they often do, when they’re done sharing out, they ask me to answer the same question. What I told them earlier in the day is that I would describe my childhood as, “planned,” which was accurate enough, but not quite. Now, with a bit more time to think about my answer, I would describe my childhood as being, “designed.”

Everything about my upbringing had a purpose and a plan, and it was all part of my parents’ dream…