Since Rowan was born, we’ve spent part of every summer on a little island off the coast of Connecticut. The island has one house on it, no wifi, and no tv. The house graced the cover of J.Crew’s Spring 1989 Catalog. It’s iconic but also an absolute hidden gem. It’s sleepy and humble in its splendor. As local lore goes, in the 1600s, famed pirate Captain William Kidd buried treasure in the waters surrounding the islands as he was fleeing pirate hunters. Our kids look for the treasure every summer. (We’re still waiting for our lives to change with a big discovery.)
The Connecticut coastline does not get the love and adoration of the Maines and Massachusetts of the world and everyone there likes it that way. There is no frill, no event to be at, no place everyone isn’t welcome. It is quaint + charming, local + welcoming, green + blooming - it’s make your own fun. It is oysters and lobster rolls and mudslides. It’s everything you want from New England in the summertime. At any given moment, while off island in town, you feel like Lorelai and Rory could turn the corner on their way to Luke’s. It makes summer easy. It makes parenting easy.
“Give your children unconditional love and you will create emotionally strong people. Give them your care and teach them about the world and you will create intelligent and inspired individuals. The world is how a mother presents it. Help your child to see the beauty of it.” - Marina Assouline in Mother and Child
I love this quote from the book Mother and Child. I wrote it down one day when I was reading the book because I enjoyed the reminder that “the world is how a mother presents it.” This is so true and the purest way to acknowledge a mother’s mark on society. We present the world to little, budding brains and they go out into the world and reflect what we give them back out. Similarly, I just finished Ann Patchett’s newest novel, Whistler (I found it to be utterly brilliant, as I do all her work), in which a young character is tasked with going into the snow to seek out help from an adult. To her stepfather, she expresses concern about approaching strangers but he reassures her that people are helpful and everyone she comes across will treat her with kindness. As an adult, she looks back on this conversation from her childhood and is moved by how much the way he presented the world to her - as a place of kindness - informed her entire life. She said she went through life assuming kindness and it made for a very happy life. He helped her see the beauty of it. We, as mothers, have that same opportunity every day.
I think there is such a connection between demonstrating care and creating inspired children. When kids feel unconditional love, they feel safe to try new things and to explore on their own. This is why the little island in Connecticut is so precious to me. It is small in reality but huge in the imaginations of children. Summer after summer, they return to their favorite little parts of this sliver of land that polka dots the Northeast Atlantic Ocean - the fairy garden, the secret woods, the rocks, the beach, the crow’s nest. Each spot is simple but the kids have given them all a name and attached meaning to each one. They can explore on their own - “we’re going to climb the rocks to keep a look out for pirate ships!” - and feel a sense of independence and the wonder that comes along with that.
It’s a reminder that kids need exactly zero sources of technology in their lives to have fun, be creative, and engage with the world. It’s how, I think, we create intelligent and inspired individuals. That 90s summer or rather, way of life, that we all crave so much for ourselves and our children is within reach. We can present it to them and, as Marina Assouline said, help them “see the beauty of it.” Pretty soon, they won’t need any help at all. Our presentation of the world will enlighten them to how magnificent it is.
As another summer comes to a close, I can tell you right now I will be nostalgic for this summer with my boys. I shared this previously but I know I’ll yearn for the way this summer felt like the first time I had three children instead of one or two + a baby - the freedom that has afforded has given way to so many fun memories for us as a complete family of five, opposed to the divide and conquer family we’ve been in previous summers with a baby. I’ll look back on this summer and remember it as the summer we came together as five in our outings and activities and, oftentimes, our bedtimes. It has been fun and special in so many I-can’t-put-it-into-words ways. I’m in love with July and always in awe of August, summer’s swan song. It’s the tippy top peak of summer that slips away so quickly into the brilliance of fall. Oftentimes, I think, if I didn’t live in Charleston, I’d call Connecticut home. It’s funny to me how a place I never visited in my own childhood now has such a stronghold on me and has played such a sweet role in my boys’ childhoods. Life is great and unexpected! J.Crew always knows best.
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