My family recently spent a quiet Sunday together doing a big puzzle. The picture was our solar system, including tiny print with facts about each planet. It took up half our table and when finished, we all chatted about planetary orbits while eating dinner. My husband and daughter asked my son for some clarification on facts listed on the puzzle and my son happily explained what he knew. I almost teared up.

My son is a smart kid, but he was always tall for his age. This matters in how people judged him. His sister was three years older, but they were about the same height. Family and friends treated them equally and expected the same responses without thinking about it, just because of the visual. I was continually defending him, reminding others that he was three years younger than my daughter. For a boy, my son spoke early, but with a pronounced stutter. This made it seem like he wasn’t verbally advanced, even though he was for his age.

This trend continued as he matured. By twelve he was taller than most members of the family and easily mistaken for sixteen. The fact that his voice dropped to a baritone was also disconcerting, since he was most certainly at the maturity level of an average twelve year old boy.

What didn’t help matters is that no matter what my daughter tried, it came easily: art, writing, math, sports, etc. And if she wasn’t amazing at it, she had a determination that gave her an edge. She was not born a musical genius (we have recordings to prove this, sorry sweetheart) but with a musician mother, she became dedicated to learning it, and at this point is far beyond where I was at her age. My daughter is gifted and intense, and hard to keep up with.

My son has an easy-going personality. This was good because he never tried to compete with his sister, though he was happy to tag along in all of her projects and ideas. But he also drove my husband and me nuts in schoolwork. My son always did the minimum required, so he could go back to building with Lego bricks, playing board games with his grandma, or just staring out the window. He had no interest in reading until about eight, though he quickly took off and started reading for hours in hidden corners of the house so no one would bother him.

My husband could not relate to this attitude, being a serious over-achiever, but I could. I honestly remember spending much of my childhood smearing glue on my hand just so I could pick it off. I really can’t say this was a productive use of my time, but at least I could relate to my son. I tried to assure my husband that when our boy found a passion, he would dive into it, and it would help him with a future career.

And it did happen. One year my kids participated in the Science Olympiad. My son chose astronomy, since his grandpa had given him a telescope recently and he was having fun with it. By the time of the test, my son was absolutely hooked on anything outer space. He did poorly on the test because he had no interest in studying those particular areas, and I decided not to make him. Instead I let him tell me excitedly about all the facts, concepts, and amazing discoveries in the world of astronomy he was reading about and watching on The Universe DVDs his grandpa had mailed to him.

He quickly declared he was going to become an astronomer. The next year, as his passion grew, he changed it to astrophysics. Then last year he narrowed it down to astrobiology which combines several science subjects my son enjoys: biology, physics, and ALIENS!

My husband has breathed a sigh of relief seeing how my son can master any subject he actually cares about. My daughter is proud of her brother, the astronomy expert. And I just love seeing both my children come into their gifts and talents in their own time.