Friday, March 14, 2008

It's more common than you might think...



A while back, I discussed the last lecture of Professor Randy Pausch...his final lecture was not on academics, but on life. Among the many life lessons he imparts on the audience is to give your kids freedom to be creative and to develop their interests. Case in point: his parents let him write the quadratic equation on his bedroom wall and draw all sorts of inventions that planted the seed for his future interest in math and science.

My post posed the question, would you let your kids draw on the wall? Really? Well not long after I asked that question, I began painting a bedroom in our new house. The bedroom had belonged to the previous owner's daughter who spent most of her pre-teen and teenage years there.

Her parents let her do what Randy's did. And the closet walls were sprinkled with drawings, quotes and notes between her and her friend. As I started to paint over these years of memories, including one note ringing in the new year with "Happy 2000" in all caps, I was reluctant and a bit sad to cover up the memories!

So the hubby and I decided to leave one portion of the artwork up...who knows it may be inspiration for a daughter of our own one day so she knows she too can chart out her dreams right there on her bedroom wall.

Enjoy the pics!