Nell Painter was an accomplished adult. She was in her seventies. She was a world-class historian. Yet even then, her mother was teaching her.
How did she have the courage to leave a promising academic career at that age and go to art school? Well, her mother writing her own first book at age sixty-five probably had something to do with it.
“It took me years to sense the bravery, the sturdy determination her metamorphosis demanded, for she was tougher than I could see during her lifetime,” she said. “I knew she delved deep to express herself with unadorned honesty. Hard for a woman. Doubly hard for a black woman. Triply hard for a black woman of a class and a generation.” And yet her mother had done it. So when Nell reached her own golden years, she didn’t find it strange to try something strange. She didn’t mind looking odd or out of place. She didn’t mind doing something hard. Her book Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over is a testament to what her mother had taught her implicitly and explicitly.
We should take from this two things: We never stop teaching our kids. And though what we are doing right now may not be resonating with them, it can teach them something in the future.
Keep doing what needs to be done. Embody what you want your kids to be. Keep growing. Keep being the example they can follow. Keep teaching them, implicitly and explicitly.