BigBrother frequently plays firefighter. Upstairs, downstairs, outside, in the car. He doesn’t even need his uniform, boots, air pack and hose. His imagination is rather awesome. Today he turned a recorder into a hose. I heard him making the whooshing sound of imaginary water putting out an imaginary fire from his playroom.
And then I heard this from the stairwell.
Mommy! There’s a fire!
A pause.
And smoke!
I immediately left my work station, opened the gate to the stairs and ran down to his playroom. I didn’t smell smoke. I knew that he was imagining himself to be a firefighter. I had heard the sounds he was making to put out a fire. And as I came down the steps, I saw him standing there with his musical instrument posing as a hose. But, still, I went, heart caught somewhere in my throat.
I asked him to show me, as I rounded the corner of the hallway into the playroom. He ran in front of me and pointed to a spot in the middle of his floor where all of his trains were crashed together on his Thomas the Train rug. There was no fire. I told him that I was glad he had his hose and that he was a brave firefighter. I also told him that I was proud of him for telling mommy that there was a fire. And I went back upstairs.
FireDad and I agreed, walking back up the steps, that while we were almost 100% sure that he was just talking about an imaginary fire, it was a phrase we simply couldn’t ignore. What if it had been real and we had just said, “Okay Buddy! Good work being a firefighter,” down the steps? While we didn’t smell anything, what if it had only been the first flickers, leaving us plenty of time to put it out before damage happened? A million questions raced through our heads. Should we encourage firefighter imagination play or not?
In the end, we’re not going to tell him he can’t pretend to be a firefighter. We’re going to let him pretend to be whatever it is that he wants to be whether that’s a firefighter or a space man or a cowboy or a teacher or a bear. We will, however, leave whatever it is that we are doing each and every time he mentions the word fire. It would fall at our feet if something was wrong and we didn’t believe him. I won’t even bother asking, “Is it a pretend fire or real,” because, to BigBrother, everything is real. Especially his imagination.
In the end, I will likely get a good leg workout running up and down steps. There’s always a silver lining to parenting, right?
