One of the great things about being a child is sometimes what children mostly miss (and adults usually miss entirely): the opportunity to work toward whom to become. Doctor or dentist? Actress or ballerina? Mommy or airplane pilot? Daddy or firefighter?
Stick half-a-dozen ties in the dress-up area and, within minutes, you’ll have a Daddy wrap one round his neck (don’t worry: we’re always watching!), then plop down into an armchair to read the paper or watch the ball game. Half-a-dozen silky scarves will, within minutes, conjure any number of would-be starlets prancing cross a make-believe stage.
If not ties or scarves, stick a half-dozen Stetsons on top of the cabinets and watch the kids become — for a little while — cowhands galloping cross the range, rounding up them doggies. Yee-hah! Get-along now!
In a few minutes, most of them grow weary and mosey on to something else, at least till tomorrow. Usually, though, one or two keep it up for a while, imagining ever more deeply what fun a ranch hand’s life must be. As adults, we sometimes forget the value of such imaginative play for a three- or four-year-old. After all, we know the real world. Right? But if never given the chance to revel deeply in being a cowpoke, doctor, or Daddy, how can we then expect them ever to imagine themselves into a life that — one day — will complete them?
Life’s fulfillment lies only as deep as the imagination.