Valuing an Open Heart
Showing affection isn't just for kids
“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry,
the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness
which does not bow before children.”
~Kahlil Gibran
Two weeks ago, as I prepared to travel to Minnesota, I wrote a little bit about the moment in the sun the state is having, and I shared a couple of photos of my own midwestern grandfather, who Tim Walz, dubbed “America’s dad,” reminds me of in many ways. My grandfather was also a military veteran, educated through the GI Bill, a high school teacher who married a teacher, a father, a hunter, a dog owner, and a Dairy Queen aficionado. By all accounts, he was an extremely tough but inspiring teacher, the kind of teacher you might dread a little, but later look back on with gratitude for the high bar they believed you could surmount. According to all of the family stories, he was similarly tough but devoted as a dad (though that toughness melted away when he had grandkids). And I can’t help but smile, thinking about how he probably would have appreciated Walz’s stance on “a well tended gutter.”
Despite his firm pragmatism and high expectations, my grandfather was also someone who’s capacity for love bubbled to the surface quickly and easily. We sang “Home, Home on the Range” loudly together in his pickup truck on our way to go fishing. He built handmade rocking horses for each of his grandchildren, and even for some children who weren't his own. I learned recently that one of my cousins wrote a school essay detailing why our grandfather was his “best friend.” I remember his tight hugs at the airport, as we would prepare to head home for New York after a visit, tears catching in his throat. And, when I was twelve, and we sat in the hospital with my mom at the end of her life, I remember how hard it was to maintain the stoic composure I wanted so badly to hold onto when he was in the room, because his emotions were so raw that they seemed to spill over into those around him. He was an improbable blend of rigorous practicality and unabashed love.
I’m certain he stood and applauded with tears of pride in his eyes at each of his children and grandchildren’s accomplishments, and I can easily imagine that he may have pointed to me and proclaimed, “That’s my granddaughter,” to the person seated next to him at my college graduation. So I’ve found myself lingering on all of the attention a teenage boy, Tim Walz’s son, has received over the past two weeks for his own emotional display of love and pride.
Children often create opportunities for us to reveal our truest selves, and the fact that the tears of Tim Walz’s son, Gus, spurred more commentary than Oprah or Obama—both from those who were moved and those who lashed out with ridicule—surely reveals something about our national identity. The case has been made, vociferously and appropriately, that deriding a child with special needs ought to be something we can all agree is unacceptable, regardless of politics or the radius of their parents’ spotlight. As a teacher and a parent, I stand especially firmly behind these takes. But I also think that this is probably the most basic lesson we can draw from this moment. What if we held ourselves to a higher bar by not only empathizing with and defending Gus and other kids like him, but learning from them and even seeking to emulate them?
As disturbing as it is that there are corners of our culture that would denigrate expressions of love and pride from a teenage boy, I also find it telling that so many of us found these expressions so moving, because both reactions seem to reveal a level of surprise and unfamiliarity with such a sincere and open display of affection.
One of the central tasks of childhood is learning to manage emotions, and the nuances involved in this work present some of the most complex challenges in parenting, as we aim to help our children contain their emotions enough to eventually manage the demands of adult life, without boxing their feelings up so tightly that they become ticking time bombs. Our emotions, as Fred Rogers said, need to be both “mentionable” and “manageable.” Attaining this balance is more challenging than it sounds, and it can be doubly challenging for parents of children with special needs, who often struggle more to identify and handle their feelings. It’s also worth noting that these children are faced with greater hurdles than many of us could imagine handling ourselves without tears of frustration or hurt at times. For all children, the tension between developing self-regulation and maintaining a confident capacity for self-expression is at the core of growing up. And how we support this process can be central to differing parenting styles, particularly when it comes to feelings that are often deemed more negative like anger and fear.
So what can we glean from the groundswell of response to an expression of unfiltered love and pride, and from our quick inclination to defend this expression by noting that it came from a child who has special needs? There is a powerful message here about our capacity to value and lift up neurodiversity, and the possibility that we could soon have an advocate for children and families navigating such differences in the White House is profoundly hopeful. Hand in hand with this hope, though, I also wonder why showing bold and earnest affection seems to feel so unfamiliar that we can only understand and value it by placing it within the container of perceived innocence and difference that childhood and neurodiversity offer.
While there are many contexts in which a capacity for restraint may be important, I also think it would be valuable to consider how we might all move through the world a little differently—perhaps with both greater confidence and deeper tenderness—if we felt more at ease showing bold expressions of love and had more opportunities to receive such expressions. It reminds me of the raucous cheering I witnessed among the middle schoolers at my son’s school concert last spring, which I also found myself wishing could be reflective of a more universal experience.
In my years in the classroom, I’ve certainly watched many children throw themselves on the floor in full tantrum mode. This is an experience of emotion that we work with children, over time, to name, understand, and manage, not so they reject the feelings that lead them to such actions, but so they can navigate them without being quite so overwhelmed and overtaken—to make them mentionable and manageable. But I’ve also seen children throw their arms around each other, around a parent, or around a pet, and I’ve felt them throw their arms around me, showing unfiltered, exuberant affection. Of course, conversations about consent and self-control can be important here as well. But, for the most part, these gestures of gleeful love instantly turn up the level of joy for everyone in the room, just as Gus Walz’s expression of love and pride seemed to not only affect his dad, but tap into our own wells of exuberant love as observers of this close-knit family.
Somehow, I think it must be possible to strive for a version of balance between self-regulation and self-expression that allows us to become increasingly able to manage the instinct to throw ourselves to the floor, while retaining enough confidence in our affections to throw our arms around each other, or to stand up and applaud with abandon. I especially want this for our teenage boys, whom we seem more often to sell on the reverse—a balance that valorizes rage and shames affection.
I hope that my own teenage son can witness many more examples of the kind of expressions of deep care that Gus Walz showed and know that such expressions of love, pride, and affection are acceptable for everyone, including him, with no asterisks or footnotes and no expiration age.
There are many things we have to learn over the course of childhood. But there are also lessons we can learn from children and from neurodiversity that make our own adult lives better, and I think there is perhaps no lesson more worthwhile than a willingness to express and receive deep, unabashed love.
I hope that the traces of my grandfather, who I see in my son in many ways—his love of science, his stubborn rationality, and a temperament that has somehow always been both deeply pragmatic and startlingly vulnerable—reside within him, and that these seeds will help him, along with models like Gus, to know that it’s possible and permissible to overflow with love from time to time, that this is not an instinct we have to explain away as acceptable only within the context of childhood, neurodivergence, or femininity, but rather an instinct to appreciate and make space for in all of our lives, and even one that can be a signifier of leadership.
Let’s raise more kids like Gus and allow our own hearts to open with theirs.
Wishing you unrestrained love and affection,
Alicia
P.S. I intentionally included a photo of Gus and his dog, Scout, at the top of this post, instead of the now ubiquitous photo of Gus at the DNC, in order to avoid furthering the “inspiration porn,” which can be its own challenging minefield for kids with special needs. And I love this photo, because it reminds me so much of my own son’s adoration for our dog. Pets are one of the best ways to inspire unrestrained affection.
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