The Common Denominator

I love children

I have loved them since I was one of them myself, loved holding the hands of someone smaller, hauling someone’s baby around.  Loved their soft bodies and starfish hands, their smiles  bright as a camera flash.

I have taken care of many children, numerous new people, small humans  of all shapes and sizes and places.

Sometimes, I mind little ones who live in homes that are large and beautiful, homes with big paintings and expensive furniture.

These children have rooms filled with toys, and they show them to me as if we are in a museum, taking me on a tour of their possessions. They always seem hard to please, these little aristocrats. Life bores them already. They walk away from their dolls, leave them abandoned, limbs splayed on the couch.

Sometimes I take care of young ones who live in cramped apartments,  whose toys are few and worn and well-loved, and who are very poor, but do not seem to mind.  Their smiles are wide and uninhibited, and they never look like they are posing. Their dolls stay in their arms, protected. Held close, so that they cannot escape, cannot be lost.

But all the young souls I have known, no matter if their mother is a maid or a PHD, all the children are the same.

In a few essential ways, they are the same.

They all like long hair, hair they can gather with their fingers and tug at.

They like it when I let them crawl on me, and they nest in my lap like  birds.

They like silly faces, especially when  they are unexpected, when they surprise them.

They like to explore.

They like soft cotton fabric, and they like to lay their heads against it, especially when there is a body beneath it, warm and inviting.

They like sweet things, but not too much, because then it overwhelms them and the world is manic and bright. Just a little, just one cookie, maybe two. They like that.

They like the sound of a voice reading, sharing a story.

They like to play, to create worlds. It takes so little for them to escape, one cardboard box, a rocket, a home, a boat.  They laugh like they have a secret.

It makes me happy, to see that at least when we are small we have a common denominator.

I see kids on the news and in my books that are homeless, or underfed, or hurt, or alone.  Their eyes are big and dark,serious. They have no doll to hold.

I want to help them.

And I know I can, I can, because they are children.

And children, children I know.

I know how to hold them, and sing to them, and talk to them.

So I will go to places that need people to  hold children’s hands and make them feel safe, and I will do that.

Because in some essential ways,

They are all the same. We are all the same.