A crafty craftsman

Allow me to paraphrase a great philosopher of our generation: There are two things that I cannot stand in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's hobbies. And crafters. I have always hated anything craft-related. The word alone is weird. Walking into a Michaels creeps me out. I feel like I'm on the enemies' home turf. I envision everyone I see surrounded by a sea of cats and trinkets, hunched over a table for weeks, creating something they are going to sell for $15.99 at a craft fair. I see our landfills filling up with the junk that they have created. I'm not an environmentalist by any means, but I think outlawing crafting would be the green thing to do. In fact, if I was ruler of the planet, that would be my second order of business (right after I outlawed toll roads of course).

I know that my hatred of crafting is petty and intolerant. But I can't help it. It's a part of who I am. And after some soul searching, I have figured out why. It was ingrained into me on the suburban streets of Yorba Linda. It was driven into my heart every day of Kindergarten and every weekend at church. When you force a child with borderline retarded fine motor skills to participate in "craft time" over and over again, a hatred begins to brew within the depths of who he is. Sunday school was the worst. I could never figure out what crafting had to with God. As far as I could tell, Jesus never crafted (I know, I know... he was a carpenter, but that is a legitimate trade). I would sit there just staring longingly across the room at the toys, wondering why they had all been sequestered away from us. Why they had to torture us like that between singing and snack I'll never know. And then seeing that patronizing look of clearly faked approval on my mother's face when I showed her my handy work; it was almost more than I could bear. My shame had to be externalized. There was nothing wrong with me: crafting is clearly the devil.

So why am I sharing all this? Because as I type this, Mindy is crafting in the other room. Don't worry she is not in any physical danger, I have my hatred under control. She is making these animal pictures for the baby's room that are actually really cute yet chic. I am very impressed. But it got me thinking about crafting and parenting and what if my son was a crafter and how I'd have to mock him, disown him, etc. Seriously though, I have realized that when you make kids do unnecessary things that they suck at, over and over and over again, they are going to either hate you or always hate that thing. I am going to try to remember this as a parent. And I'm going to make my son do monotonous, difficult crafts at way too young an age to ensure that he detests them as much I do. Let the Graves' alliance against crafters begin!