Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere... | Making Storytellers

Audrey and I talk a lot about bubbles. Not because we are obsessed with bubble-soap-and-wands, or because we like to reminisce about the old Seinfeld episode, or even because I owe a debt of gratitude to Bazooka comics for ensuring that I never forget Audrey’s birthday (“Hey Joe, what’s the only day of the year that is also a command? March Fo(u)rth!”).

No. We started talking about bubbles a little over a year ago. That was around the time that we began working toward making our move-abroad idea into a reality. One of our overarching goals was to “get the kids out of the bubble” and help them gain some perspective. Sure, there were innumerable awesome aspects to the life we were living back in Milton but as the kids sped (too quickly!) toward their pre-teen, teen (and beyond?!?) years, we wanted them to be able to step outside the bubble for a bit and gain some perspective. We wanted them to be able to look from 1,000’s of miles away and realize “wow…why should I give a crap about who got a phone before me or who made what team or who is going to go to which school? There is an entire world out there outside of this tiny bit of it I’m obsessively focusing on…and not one of those billions of people is remotely concerned about the trivial aspects of my life. What are the big things I should really care about?” Looking back over the past 8 months (and counting), the kids have gained a broader perspective. What is perhaps equally (if not more) satisfying as parents is watching how that type of perspective and openness has been gained. I think the kids came into the year thinking “ok…Mom and Dad ramble about this 'bubble.' I guess we now get outside the bubble and float around in the ether for a year, which will suck but I parents say that I’ll gain some perspective, whatever that means.” Instead, what they have realized it isn't about floating around in the ether as a critic. It is about recognizing that the world is filled with bubbles that are in some ways very different and in other ways surprisingly similar to what they knew at home. They don't have a monopoly on having carved out a little piece of the world in which the good news is that one feels comfortable but the bad news is that one over-inflates the importance of trivial things or overvalues their own point of view of life experience. We have even talked about the fact they they have gone out and created their own “new bubble” down here.

A few weeks ago the kids all had some friends over the house and at one point Audrey and I looked around and realized that the kids in the house were American, Costa Rican, Bolivian, Czech, Swiss and Russian. Later that night, we used the day as an excuse to talk about the bigger picture with the kids – how relatively-smoothly they found their footing here. How cool it is to be able to come home and share stories about what an Indian friend told them about Hinduism or what words another friend taught them in Russian. How they have gone from being “on edge” every time they stepped into a store or went to a new activity to the point where Jack is playing tennis tournaments against 28 year old adults and where they have lost their fear of telling the barber to “please cut off my sideburns” or asking for something at the counter of a tiny convenient store built into the first floor of someone’s house.

Jack and Antonio (his doubles partner) at the "Castillo Cup"

Jack and Antonio's competition (a bit older than them...)

I’m sure a lot of folks think we are a bit crazy for having these types of conversations with our 12, 11, 9 and 7 year olds but we have found that the more we have done so over the year, the more they have morphed from quasi-lectures to actual “conversations” with even Liadan sharing opinions we probably never would have given her credit for having in the past. The topics end up free-flowing well beyond just what they have seen and learned firsthand to the world at large and all of the “bubbles” they don’t and may never see. Without having stepped away from the old bubble and all of the heads-down-focus it brought with it, I can’t really imagine the kids engaging in a back and forth conversation about poverty, or economic development issues, or avoiding close-mindedness about religions, or gay rights or wherever else the conversation might take us. But we talk about all of that and more now. It seems crazy at times, but this is what the year was all about for us. It wasn’t about a specific location or learning a specific language or seeing specific sights. It was about opening the kids’ eyes a bit and then having the time to make the most of that “eyes-open” window by talking…and listening.

Ella and Liadan make dinner (and a mess)

I think the kids now get that when we talked so much about “getting out of the bubble” it wasn’t that we were trying to say that “bubbles are bad.” Far from it. The point was to gain perspective. And gaining perspective is more about recognizing and appreciating that human beings the world over have created millions of bubbles regardless of class, race, religion or location. And to a great extent, that’s a good thing. It’s how we cope and connect as human beings --- the “social animal.” It’s how we carve out a certain amount of stability in an overall unstable natural state of the world. BUT the key is to never take yourself or your opinions or your bubble-view too seriously. Right now, I think the kids kinda get it and feel proud of themselves for getting it. Who knows what the future holds, but hopefully that is one bubble that never bursts.