There is this scene in Peppa Pig where Peppa is sad that she cannot whistle so she calls her friend Suzie Sheep to commiserate. If you’ve got a child under seven, you’ve probably seen it. My five-year-old has, many times, but the last time it made him very determined to learn to whistle.
After a few months of trying and watching many whistling tutorials he finally got it down. One of the best things about parenting is witnessing (and remembering) how much joy is found in learning something new.
The day he learned to whistle I showed him Andrew Bird performing “Roma Fade”.
He loved every second. For the first time my son asked to play with the acoustic guitar that’s always hung in our home -- previously overlooked.We watched a dozen Andrew Bird videos including his music video for “Sisyphus” which led my son to ask “why does that man keep pushing the rock over and over”.
Answering that question involved more Youtube. The TED-ed videos were his favorites when it came to mythology.
Eventually my son clicked on a thumbnail for an Icarus video. We ended up watching it four times.
We spent half an hour melting wax and talking about the heat of the sun.
I’ve collected a handful of books on Greek mythology over the years, none of which I’ve read but all of which I’d hoped would eventually come in handy - and they did. We leafed through photos and read passages about Zeus.
We watched Disney’s Hercules.
He pointed out Hercules and Zeus were characters (like Peppa) and we discussed how that’s true for Icarus and Sissaphys too. And we tried to think of all the different reasons people decided to tell stories in the first place.
At one point he confused “Icarus” with “Jesus” and that led to a conversation about Jesus and Christianity and how different people use the word “God”.
He’s been practicing guitar every night. This weekend we’ll go see some local fiddle and banjo players. He’s requested a violin and I’m going to do my best to make it happen as soon as I can. If he looses interest after it arrives, I can always return it, resell it, or learn how to play violin myself.
All of this took place over a few days. I’m sure most of the details we learned about are forgotten. He’s not brought up mythology since. He may never show interest in it again. Last night may have been the last time he plays guitar. And all of that would be just fine with me.
The point is falling down a rabbit hole of interesting ideas - seeing how they connect, finding out where they lead, seeing what sticks. The point is that my son's own curiosity is what propels him to discover and learn more.
There is no doubt that me sitting him down and saying “let’s learn about Greek mythology and string instruments!” would have failed miserably. The real learning happens when I sit back and see where he wants to go.
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