8 SEPTEMBER 2022 | IKIGAI | PARENTING | BY JUDE FOULSTON
Why farming crickets is a big deal in our home at the moment
I have to be honest, back when I was pregnant, there’s no way I would have ever imagined spending an afternoon going from one pet shop to another, the ‘plastic shop’, and the garden shop to get the hundred things on my 10-year-old shopping list.
A shopping list for everything he needs to start a cricket farm (to feed his leopard gecko) which he also wants to breed so that he can make money (probably to buy a crocodile.)
But don’t get me started on the crocodile…
I mean, back with my preggie belly, eating pineapples by the bucket, we pictured a little boy who would love to play tennis, just like his dad, a boy who would lose himself in books for hours and hours, just like his mom.
I DID NOT picture geckos, snakes, crickets, and let’s not forget the rats.
But here we are, he doesn’t play tennis, he doesn’t love to read, yet…. but he does love every creature, great and small.
And what we’re realizing is that we need to help him follow HIS passions, not ours.
Even when it’s cricket farming!
And yes, I still have to stop myself from panicking that he’s going to farm crickets one day, rather than ‘change the world.’
But…..Working with creatures makes him thrive, it makes him come alive.
Today was filled with problem solving, research, creating, and engaging with a bunch of adults at each shop, learning from each interaction.
Right now, as his Dad reads him a bedtime story, he’s drawing out a plan on how to stop rhino poachers.
And so i remind myself to ALWAYS remember to help him follow his passion, not mine….
Even when it’s crickets because who knows where it all might lead to…