Tiny Minecraft Evangelists & Other Things Keeping Me Up at Night

I took the kids to the library today.

And before you judge me for spending an entire day at the library during our "vacation," let me defend myself.

This library is incredible.

The entire bottom floor is dedicated to kids. They have blocks, LEGO tables, puppets, learning toys, board games, puzzles, and enough books to make Belle from Beauty and the Beast question whether she needed a bigger ladder.

My kids absolutely love it there.

So yes, we stayed all day.

Did I briefly wonder if everyone else was off hiking majestic waterfalls while I was supervising the thousandth block tower of the day?

Sure.

Did I care?

Not even a little.

The kids donated a few books they'd outgrown, made some new friends, and generally had the kind of wholesome summer day that makes you feel like maybe you're doing this parenting thing right.

Then...

A little boy walked over and asked my daughter if she watched Minecraft.

She politely explained that her cousin loves Minecraft, but that Mom doesn't let her play those kinds of games yet.

Friends...

This child transformed before my very eyes.

He became a tiny Minecraft evangelist.

I've never seen someone so passionately committed to spreading the good news of cubic building blocks.

He launched into a full presentation explaining why Minecraft was not just a game, but apparently an essential life skill.

I wasn't about to argue theology with a six-year-old.

Instead I smiled, nodded, and asked him what he liked best about it.

Because that's what adults do.

We encourage passions, even when those passions involve punching pixelated trees.

Eventually he and his grandma left, and I thought that was the end of our exciting library adventure.

It was not.

My daughter came over to help me pick out a bedtime book.

Then she quietly said,

"The books I like...our neighbor doesn't like them. Maybe I shouldn't like them anymore."

Cue my heart breaking into approximately 4,372 tiny pieces.

We talked about how books are supposed to stretch our imagination.

How if everyone only liked the same stories, we'd never discover new worlds or different ideas.

How it's perfectly okay if someone else doesn't love the same books we do.

She smiled.

She picked her book.

Crisis averted.

...or so I thought.

Fast forward to bedtime.

Out of nowhere she starts crying because her aunt and uncle are coming tomorrow, and she's scared they'll expect her to read.

Sweet girl.

The confidence she'd carried all day had suddenly disappeared.

And I found myself wondering the same thing every parent wonders at least once a week.

Where in the world did all this self-doubt come from?

One minute I have a little girl who introduces herself to strangers, shares toys, donates books, and spends hours creating imaginary worlds.

The next minute she's worried someone won't approve of the books she loves.

Or that she won't read well enough.

Parenting is emotional whiplash.

There are days I feel like I'm absolutely crushing this whole motherhood thing.

Then there are days where one random comment from another child makes me question everything.

Maybe that's just what being six is.

At six, everyone else's opinion feels enormous.

A friend doesn't like your favorite book?

Maybe you shouldn't either.

Someone asks if you can read?

Suddenly reading feels like a performance instead of an adventure.

Their confidence isn't gone.

It's just...under construction.

Then, because apparently I enjoy worrying recreationally, my brain skipped ahead a few months.

My daughter starts public school this fall.

And every parent who has ever sent their child to school knows exactly where my thoughts went.

"Great. I'm going to spend the next twelve years reteaching whatever nonsense Timmy says."

Is Timmy a real child?

No.

Is there probably an actual Timmy somewhere?

Statistically, yes.

Will my daughter come home one day asking why we don't own slime that glows in the dark, repeating a word she's absolutely not supposed to know, or suddenly deciding broccoli is "gross" because Timmy said so?

Almost certainly.

But then I remembered something.

When we're out in public, people don't stop me to tell me my kids know all their letters.

They tell me they're kind.

They tell me they're imaginative.

They tell me they're polite.

Maybe that's the stuff that matters most.

Reading will come.

Confidence will grow.

There will be a thousand little moments where someone else's opinion shakes her for a day.

And there will be a thousand more moments where we remind her who she is.

So no...

I'm probably not ruining my child.

Even if one day she comes home convinced Minecraft should be added to the elementary school curriculum.

If that happens, I'll know exactly which cousin started the movement.