There Should Be a Ninja Ballerina School
I’m eating lunch with the tot, when, through a mouthful of peanut-butter-on-wheat, she blurts, out of nowhere, “I want to go to ninja ballerina school.”
“I’m sorry?” I ask.
“Ninja ballerina school,” she repeats. “Where I can be a ninja. And dance. Can I do that?”
“How do you know what a ninja is?” I ask. “Did Daddy teach you that?” Of course he did.
She shrugs her shoulders, avoids the question. “I just want to be a ninja. And a ballerina. Can I do that?”
There is no entry in the parenting handbook for these types of questions.
“Well, honey,” I begin. “I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a ninja ballerina school. I’m sure you could train to be a ninja, and I know you can train to be a ballerina, but I’m not sure if you can train to do both at the same time.”
Her face scrunches up into a frown. “Why not?”
“Well, I’m just not sure how much need there is for a ballerina who’s also a ninja,” I try to reason.
“Of COURSE there is, Mama,” she argues. “You could dance, and fight, and do ninja stuff!”
“How do you know what a ninja is?” I circle back. She ignores me, sidesteps the question. Again.
After a short pause and a few more bites of her sandwich, she tells me, “You can look it up online.” She’s 4. She knows about the Internet. It’s all over.
We finish lunch. We Google. “Ninja ballerina school,” I type into the search box.
“What’s it say? What’s it say?” she asks, climbing into my lap.
I try to read the screen overtop of her bobbing head.
“Well, there’s a Benny Ninja, who’s is the father of the House of Ninja, a professional dancer…and apparently he has a training academy in New York called the Ninja Training Center, but I don’t think that’s what we’re looking for,” I tell her.
“Keep wooking,” she insists.
(Side note: for a second or two, I consider changing my last name to Ninja. Because, let’s face it – that would be kick-ass. “Jennifer Ninja.” Awwww yeah…)
After an expected fruitless search, I try to let her down easy.
“Honey, I don’t think we’re going to be able to find a ninja ballerina school. I’m sorry.”
“I’m just…disappointed,” she says, using the new word she just learned, and (yay!) in the correct context. “There should be one.”
Yes, there should.
Moments like this never fail to remind me of the limits we put on ourselves as we grow, and of the expectations we put on our children as they mature. As parents, we may expect our kids to grow up in our likeness, to follow in our family’s footsteps, whether that’s heading to medical school, becoming an educator, someday taking over the family business, or any variation on the theme.
Sure, our offspring may share our genes, our habits, our lifestyle, our love of ‘80s punk rock or our unruly cowlick, but that doesn’t mean that they’re us. Not even close.
Case in point: A while back, I was spending time with a dear friend when I mentioned that I was trying to decide whether her new baby looked more like her or her husband.
“She looks like herself,” she told me.
It was one of those comments that became permanently etched into my brain.
Yes. She looks like herself.
We all have high hopes that our children will find success and happiness in life, but our definition of success and happiness may be quite different from theirs – just like ours was with our parents. Of course, I want my kiddo to be successful, but above all, I want her, at the deepest level of her soul, to feel satisfied and at peace with the choices she makes. I don’t just want her to chase happiness; I want her to catch it, harness it, cultivate it, and make it grow.
So, if my daughter wants to be a ninja ballerina, I only hope that she will find a way to be the best damn ninja ballerina that she can be.