Looking At Me

As a New York City parent, you spend a significant part of your life taking your children to places where people evaluate them. There are tests and interviews for preschool and kindergarten, longer tests and interviews for middle and high school, and any number of other situations where your children are subjected to people looking at them to evaluate their intelligence or their behavior or their "play well with others" skill. It's not surprising, then, when you realize that all they really want most of the time is to be left alone--to be allowed to stay in their natural habitat, not obligated to prove anything to anyone.
 
It struck me, as I sat waiting for my son during one of these visits, how similar--yet different--all of this is to job searching. In both cases, you are being "looked over," evaluated on your past performance and numbers and on how well you hold up on the spot in an "interview." In both cases, the goal is to aim for the top places and the right fit, and to be seen as more suited than all the other people around you. In both cases, you try to put your best foot forward, in an effort to move to the next step.
 
There is, however, a difference. While none of us may like job searching, our goal, ultimately, is to get people to look--to put forth a letter and resume so compelling that the recipient just has to see more. While our kids may want to excel, or may want to end up in the place with the biggest gym or the best food or the individual lockers, they would rather not be "looked at," even if their performance and numbers make that compelling. Isn't it good enough that they just do what they do on a daily basis?
 
So, as I go through my own process of letter-writing and thinking "just look at me," I am glad that every so often, my kids can take a pause from that. There will be years more of being looked at in their futures. They deserve a little time for just doing their best and being themselves, while they can still have it.