Last September, my daughter and I were walking along the promenade on a beach holiday, marvelling at a sunset, when she let go of my hand and bent over something on the ground. Before I could clock what she was doing, she had picked up a small crab, holding the top and bottom between her thumb and middle finger, and dropped it into the water. She beamed at us. “I rescued it,” she said. I freaked out, worried that she could have got hurt, before I noticed that around us a small crowd had gathered, amazed at the bravery of this cute, smiley three-year-old who felt no fear in picking up a crab and returning it to the ocean before it got stepped on, or worse.
I’m thinking about this when I take my daughter to yet another friend’s birthday party. Without sounding ungrateful for the invites for my daughter, I’ve found these parties have taken over every single weekend for the past six months or so. This one, however, is more fun than a standard soft play where the kids go wild and then eat soggy sandwiches while songs from Frozen blare in the background.
We’re in a church hall and the parents have invited a charity petting zoo to bring animals for the kids to look at. It’s a slightly strange set-up. I’m not sure how I feel about animals being thrust in front of kids to poke and stroke with their Wotsit-dusted fingers before being returned to an enclosed carry case. But, that aside, what happens next is quite inspiring. We sit in a semi-circle around two animal handlers. One of them brings an animal round for the kids to inspect and, if they choose, gently stroke. The other one follows, dousing our hands in sanitiser immediately afterwards.
When the animals are brought round, the other kids mostly recoil in fear. They squeal in fright at the snake, move away in disgust from the armadillo, are up and running around playing chase for the turtle. Poor turtle. When the snake comes round, I have to remove myself. I can’t look at snakes let alone entertain the idea of touching one. I don’t know where that fear comes from and what triggered it. Maybe a childhood spent obsessively watching Indiana Jones films, or the slightly terrifying snake dance Sridevi does in Nagina. Either way, I have to run to the other side of the room while my kid strokes the snake’s tail.
She turns around to me for reassurance. I’m not there. Worried, she comes looking for me. “The snake was cold,” she tells me. I realise I have to get over my own lack of bravery and sit with her no matter what. My daughter sits quietly in her seat, as instructed, inspects each animal, asks the occasional question and strokes each one delicately. Her face is one of concentration. She hangs on every word of the handler. Other parents are impressed with her lack of squeamishness.
It’s only when a rabbit is presented that most other kids take an interest again, each one clamouring to stroke the fluffy thing. My daughter approaches it quietly and respectfully, waits for the other children to get bored and move away, then bends down to stroke it. She asks the handler how old it is. She asks why it has big ears.
As we walk home, both lost in thought, I’m thinking about how my own curiosity has been hampered by things like fear and thinking I know everything already. Whereas in my child’s innocent questioning of the world, I see her sponging up every answer and processing it.
She asked me, when we read Cinderella last night, if the magic disappears at midnight and Cinderella’s clothes return to normal. And if so why does the glass slipper not do the same?
The next day, as we walk to nursery, out of nowhere she says: “I want to go to all the places I haven’t been and see all the things I haven’t seen.” I nod and tell her we definitely need to do that. “But only on Saturdays and Sundays,” she warns.
