The Vertical Tour

September 22, 2022

Over a decade ago, I used one of my weekly columns to talk about art, and how to get kids interested in it starting from an early age. The tips in it were well received, and so I augmented them into a longer article with lots more strategies, called Getting Kids Excited About Visiting an Art Museum. That article has received tens of thousands of reads over the years from all over the world. We update it now and then.

But one day soon after we published that article, my older daughter, Madison, pulled me aside. "Mom, I don't know how to break this to you," she said. "But Ella and I don't actually like being dragged to museums. It's... boring." As you can imagine, the "out and about mom" was sad to hear this. But it triggered some new ideas (and new columns) about being true to oneself, and how a parent's joys aren't necessarily a child's joys.

Then last year, Ella and I took a trip to New York. She had just finished a unit on the Renaissance in an art history class, so I decided to take her to the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. But lingering in the back of my head, as it had for all of these years since Madison confided in me, was the doubt about whether my kid was yet again just being a good sport during a weekend that was supposed to be about her.

I scheduled us on what the Cathedral calls its Vertical Tour, in which you climb around inside the stone walls of the cathedral, all the way up to the top, to see the stained glass up close. They even take you above the interior vaulted ceilings under the roof. We had a terrific guide who told us lots of fascinating information without being the least bit pompous. And Ella, who had been learning about groin vaults and the difference between Romanesque and Gothic architecture, fed me some delightful extra tidbits. I watched how absorbed she was, and it suddenly occurred to me: Hey, wait, she actually DOES like this stuff. At one point, she caught me beaming at her. She leaned in and said in my ear, "Oh, stop looking so smug."

Keep the faith, people.

—Deb