As I mentioned previously, my kids are going to have a mom who's a scholar and a maker. They'll grow up thinking that everyone writes their own software and builds their own bikes, and that "stick a microcontroller in and automate it" is a normal solution to a household problem. They'll know how long it takes to write a book, what "sabbaticals" are (and why mom is so excited about them), and why we throw a massive celebration when one of our friends gets tenure. They'll walk through grocery stores and be able to tell you how each mass-produced item was probably manufactured.
But I also want to make sure they think other things are No Big Deal, as my friend Sumana puts it. Working with their hands -- the dignity of manual labor, the knowledge that just because they're privileged with education doesn't make them better than people who aren't. A skepticism towards elitism. Respect for mastery and skill, no matter what its form. They'll grow up seeing, discussing, and working against racism, sexism, classism, ablism, homophobia, ageism -- discrimination in all of its forms, because social justice demands that we see and appreciate the infinite worth of each person. I want them to recognize and honor the dignity of those who may be different from them, disagree with them, perhaps even hurt them. I want them to know that doing this is very, very hard, but it's the good kind of hard that's worth trying your hardest at.
I want them to read and think and calculate, but I also want them to know the physicality of human experience -- not to get stuck inside their brains, but to move through life with their entire bodies, and to let life move through their entire bodies, tackling tumbling and dancing and running and climbing with as much gusto as they tackle books. I want them to experience the bigness and the beauty of the world; so many languages and cultures, how precious it is to have the opportunity to travel, and how material poverty is the least awful kind (compared to intellectual, emotional, social, or spiritual poverty, at least). I want them to never be hungry, but I also want them to know that they are not enslaved by their hunger, and that there are worse things than going without food.
I want them to know where food comes from, and how to prepare it, and how to clean the kitchen afterwards, and how to bring breakfast in bed to their parents. (This means learning to make good tea, coffee, and smoothies early on, and learning what "lactose intolerant" means, because their genes will be at least 50% Asian). How to be kind to animals, gentle with the earth, loving towards one another, and patient in communicating (especially with their deaf mom). How to perceive and pursue the mystery that underlies reality -- the practice of how one pursues growth as a human being made of and for and from love. (I call this "Catholicism," and think of my faith practice as a sort of gymnasium for getting Better At Love.) The joy of giving.
But in the end, they'll also come from a very human mother (and a very human father), and we'll mess up time and time again. I want them to see that even professors mess up, that engineers make prototypes that break, and -- more broadly -- that human beings are not perfect, but that we are free to choose. And that one of our choices is always to stand up again when we fall down, and try again to walk the path towards everything that's good.