Lenny wanted to be a Navy pilot from the time he was old enough to look up and ask, “What kind of airplane is that?” While other children collected baseball cards or action figures, Lenny accumulated an impressive fleet of Matchbox airplanes, World War II model aircraft, and just about anything capable of generating lift. His parents wisely fueled the obsession. They arranged a visit to his uncle aboard an aircraft carrier in Virginia, where Lenny was given an oversized flight suit that instantly became his prized possession. He wore it proudly to our school’s annual “Dream the You You Want to Be” presentation, looking less like a fourth grader and more like someone who had accidentally wandered away from a Top Gun casting call. More importantly, he spoke confidently about his dream of flying for the Navy.
Remarkably, Lenny never strayed very far from that goal. Five years later, he was playing football at the Naval Academy. Four years after that, he was leading the Navy flyover before the Army-Navy game. It was the sort of life trajectory that makes guidance counselors beam with pride and the rest of us wonder why our own childhood dreams of becoming astronauts, rock stars, or Chicago Cubs centerfielders never worked out quite so smoothly. To be fair, Lenny’s path was not perfectly straight. His father often shared stories of years when baseball became the new passion, followed by computers, social media, military video games, fashion, and a variety of other interests that caused temporary parental concern. Like many parents, they occasionally worried that the future Navy pilot might instead become a professional gamer, a fashion influencer, or some combination of the two. Yet they resisted the urge to steer too aggressively, trusting that exploration was part of the process. In the end, Lenny always returned to the dream that had first captured his imagination.
Today, Lenny flies for a major airline and still talks about takeoffs with the enthusiasm of that little boy in the oversized flight suit. But when we spoke recently, another dream had begun to take center stage. He was preparing to become a parent. Suddenly, the questions were no longer about altitude, airspeed, and flight plans, but about how to raise a child with confidence, independence, and purpose. He spoke with admiration about the patience his own parents had shown as he drifted through different interests before settling on his life’s work. They had given him enough freedom to explore without abandoning the larger goal. Lenny does not yet know what dreams will capture his child’s imagination, but I am confident he has an excellent flight plan. After all, he learned from parents who understood one of the great truths of childhood: sometimes the best way to help a child reach the sky is to stop trying to tell them exactly where to fly.
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From our first posting:
“As parents and teachers, we need to reclaim our traditional role as influencers of our children – not by shouting louder than the influencers our children discover online, but by stressing ideas that are more important than fancy shoes and snappy TikTok tunes. We need to emphasize traits that everyone agrees children will honor. We need to convince our children that the people who are most important to them have a better understanding of what it takes to be successful in life.”
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