I remember years ago watching both my nephews go through a Pokémon phase, where they would collect cards, read books, do all things Pokémon. I thought it was dumb, or maybe I was dumb because I didn’t understand it, but it at least occupied their time. It reminded me a lot of Garbage Pail Kids, in that it probably made no sense to my parents why any chid, particularly theirs, would collect these nonsense cards. But we loved them, and the more grotesque the cards were, the better. I was sure that by the time I had kids, this Pokémon phenomenon would be out of style. Well sadly, it’s not. My boy is 5 and he’s all in. He eats, breaths, and sleeps this shit. Every activity he does has something to do with Pokémon. Every book he chooses is Pokémon related. But what parent doesn’t love a kid that submerges himself in books, right? Wrong. Read a Pokémon book, and you too will surely want to gauge your eyes out with the sharpest object you can possibly find, perhaps even your own finger. 80% of the words I read in these books will never be used in regular adult conversation. You will never hear me tell you how I mega-evolved into a super mom using my Stun Spore moves. I can’t even pronounce half of what I’m reading to him, and Jamie just sits there laughing at my struggle. I can read an entire book to him and have zero comprehension of what I just read, yet Evan can think I read the most amazing book. I’m baffled.
The other day, I reached out to Evan’s kindergarten teacher because he is fighting me tooth and nail on doing anything academic during my mornings with him. If I ask him to practice writing…tantrum. If I ask him to practice reading…tantrum. If I ask him to practice drawing or cutting…tantrum. He says it’s too hard, or he doesn’t want to, or it is really difficult to use his brain and think. There are days when I’m just convinced he will be the kid that lives in my basement forever. I shared all these issues with his teacher, and she just smirked and said he’s doing fine, that he is doing plenty at school and can tell he will be reading and writing soon. She told me to leave him alone, don’t push any extra academics if he fights me on it, and just let him play. I sat there, nodding my head and saying, “Ah, okay, mmhmmm, mmmhmmm, sounds great….” But my Filipino mom brain was like, “Does not compute, does not compute…” What does she mean I’m not supposed to do anything academic with him? If ever there was a Filipino DCFS, that would be grounds for filing a complaint against me for my negligent parenting. With Reese, I put paper and pencil in front of her, and she went to town. This guy looks at me like I ripped his beating heart out with my bare hands if I ask him to do a workbook page. I probably had the same look on my face when his teacher told me to just let him play.
I understand that there is tons to learn from imaginative play, but it’s just not how I was raised. It’s hard to let go of some practices that have been engrained in your brain for all these years, especially when the pressure is on to not raise assholes. It will be a challenge to substitute the traditional kindergarten workbook with a Pokémon handbook, but I trust his teacher. She’s the expert, and she ensured me that he would pass kindergarten. So that’s where I’m at, just letting him have free play during his morning time with me before school starts. And that free play includes a lot of me reading those Pokémon books to him. I tried to sneak a nonfiction dog book in there, but he rejected learning about real life objects. As I am reading to him and he is developing his Pokémon smarts, I’m growing more and more certain that these nuggets of non-information will resurface in a few decades for me when I am well into my 90’s and am searching for all lost Pokémon in my nursing home, trying to train them to fight my roommate’s Pokémon. Until then, if I call you Charizard instead of your actual name, forgive me, I’m just losing my mind in attempt to support my kid’s passion. But if I call you an Ekans or Arbok, I’m basically calling you a dick, and you should go back to your Poké Balls and chill the f out. Yep, my brain is officially mush.
The Mundame 