We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
Ever since meeting my husband in high school we both found out early that we were just two simple nerds in a small town in love. We have had our fair share of rock concerts, video games, movies, and comic conventions.
But then something amazing happened; we got married and found out that we were going to be parents. So, I started thinking we would have to stop our nerd life to have a child but then I told myself that I did not want to change who we were. So, I decided to figure out a way to still nerd out and be an amazing mom to our child.
Our child was born, and it was magical; we had this sweet little bundle of joy in our arms. In the beginning, it was great watching our usual anime, reading books, and watching our action-packed superhero movies. We even took our daughter to Comicpalooza in Houston, TX and nerds of all kind (including celebrities) loved her. Even our daughter enjoyed herself and was not afraid of the costumes. So, I thought, “well hey, here we are doing it; we are being nerd parents and letting our child be a part of this world and it is going great.” There was hope that we can be a nerd family together.
As our daughter got older she wasn’t into the Disney princesses. She was more into Stitch which surprised me but it also didn’t surprise me. She is also a HUGE fan of all Miyazaki films, but her favorite are Kiki’s Deliver Service and My Neighbor Totoro. Not to knock down Disney, because she is a part of a family that are big Disney fans (including myself), but she is also a fan of Mickey. I mean, come on, who doesn’t love Disney, right?
However, she would also sit with my husband and play video games with him which helped her with hand and eye coordination. Yes, I will probably be judged but it wasn’t for long and she was just pretending to play with daddy. It was the cutest thing to watch the both bond and having daddy-daughter time. To this day, she loves to sit and watch her daddy play and tries to help him when she can.
Now, that our daughter is getting more and more aware of what’s going on she wants to interact more in the nerd world, such as game nights. My husband and I started to have board game night with our friends and every time we needed to roll dice or move our character, she would want to help us play. Even though she is much too young to understand the concept of board games, she has helped us out with rolling our dice or looking at our cards. We have also been reading to her what our cards are, so that was another outlet for teaching her to read and to understand phonics, words, etc.
My point is that you do not have to stop being who you are when you have a child. There is a way to let your child be a part of your world and there are ways to help them learn in that said world. All you need to do is find the path and go on the quest. It will be hard at times, but it is rewarding to see the look of inspiration on your child’s face.