Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
A Rose Day

A Rose Day

Last updated on: May 7, 2022 at 1:19 pm by Mary Pezzulo

A Rose Day 2022-05-07T13:19:46-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Yesterday was a Rose Day, a day where Rose gets to choose what to do.

The day before was also a Rose Day of another kind: she gets to choose her extracurriculars, when we can afford them. She was in soccer already and I finally, finally managed to sign her up for martial arts again, her first martial arts class since the pandemic began in Ohio. Martial arts are Rose’s passion. She is happy and focused when she gets to practice taekwondo, judo and kickboxing. I’ve never had a head for sports, and neither has Michael. I wouldn’t have known where to start. But when Rose was having social phobia in her Kindergarten years, the pediatrician said she needed after school lessons. I read her the list of activities offered at the free after school club and told her she had to choose two. I thought she’d choose art and gymnastics. Instead, she chose Bible Club and self-defense. She was so good at self-defense that that instructor offered us a discount on real martial arts classes, and a passion was born. I hope she gets to practice martial arts forever.

I wasn’t raised this way. I was raised to believe that children are molded in the hands of their parents. My mother flatly told me “children have no rights” and forced me to go to the Regnum Christi youth group and open gym at the Salesian Center with the other teenage homeschoolers, so I would stop being an introvert. I grew up feeling guilty that I couldn’t be what she wanted. I couldn’t turn into an extrovert. I couldn’t like what I was supposed to like, or have a personality that pleased her. “Get a personality transplant,” she would taunt me, but I couldn’t.

I like my way better.

We drove out to Pittsburgh to visit the Carnegie Science Center. Rose loves science, so I thought she’d have a great time, but she was immediately apprehensive. The Carnegie Science Center is a modern type of museum, an “interactive” museum with buttons to push and noises to listen to and docents in lab coats everywhere, running around telling you things. There is an impressive robot with a fork for an arm who plays basketball, to demonstrate some principle of robotics or other. There is a machine that farts and burps and sneezes to show you that bodies make noises. There is a display where you push a button and a fan wafts a smell at you, so you can guess what the smell is, which demonstrates something to do with neurology. There is a water table you can stick your hands in, that’s supposed to tell you about the water cycle. It’s a lot of fun, for most children. But Rose didn’t like it. It was too light on actual science. It was overstimulating and loud. And she complained that it was geared to children younger than she was. She asked to go home after a very short visit.

At first I was offended. Our membership was paid for, but what about the hour driving here, the gas we burned and the five dollars for parking? Why couldn’t she have fun? For once in her life, couldn’t she pretend to be a normal child and have a good time?

Then I realized I was angry with my daughter for not having fun on command. We left the science center.

“Do you want to go straight home? Or do you want to stop in and see the dinosaurs at the other Carnegie? Our membership pays for that too, and it doesn’t close for an hour.”

Rose said she’d like to see the dinosaurs.

The “other Carnegie” is the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, in the same sprawling complex as the Carnegie Museum of Art. I love the Carnegie Museum of Art. I could spend all day there. Rose has little patience for the fine arts, but she likes dinosaurs. And it was Rose’s day, not mine.

It’s surprisingly complicated to drive from one Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh to another Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh: three miles away as the crow flies, but twenty minutes of squiggled roads if you plan to go by car. We paid seven more dollars for parking on that side of town, and walked into the museum.

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History is not “interactive.” It’s the other kind of museum, the kind where you look at things. It has cards on the wall you have to read to understand the exhibits. It has high ceilings and impressive corridors that seem to soak up sound, so it feels like being in a library or cathedral, even when it’s crowded.

Rose was instantly at peace.

We saw the Apatosaurs, taking up the giant vaulted room from the needle-thin tip of her ever-thickening tail to the comically small oval of her head. We saw the stegosaurus and the triceratops, the adorable puppy-sized psittacosaurus with his bushy tail, the protoceratops looking like a baby dinosaur. Nothing lurched at us, shouted or passed gas.

Next, we went to see the prehistoric mammals in the next room. There was a saber-toothed cat and a display on the evolution of the horse. There was a ground sloth, and I told Rose about when I was a little girl and pretended there was the ghost of a prehistoric ground sloth living behind the furnace in my basement.

In one corner of the prehistoric mammal exhibit, there was a solitary “interactive” exhibit for children with signs saying “please touch!”

Rose glared at me as I stroked the taxidermy bear. I explained it was allowed, but she didn’t want to touch it. She just wanted to look.

We went upstairs to the dioramas of African and American animals. Rose explained all the fun facts she knew about African biomes; she identified every beast without reading the card. I just listened, letting her educate me.

She leaned over the railing of one of the museum’s cavernous atria, looking down three stories to the marble tiles of the ground floor. I didn’t, because I’m terrified of heights. Just being near one of those openings makes me dizzy. But I didn’t stop her from looking.

Then we went to the gift shop. We still had a little bit of money left over from our one big check of the year, before we have to go back to pinching every penny and never having treats.

“You can get any one thing you want here, within reason,” I said. “Want a t-shirt?”

Rose didn’t want a t-shirt. She critically examined every single stuffed animal, hugging them, gazing into their eyes, reading the tags as she’d read the cards in the dinosaur display. She pulled an enormous sequined boa constrictor off of a rack and nearly took it, but then she put it back and got a red Tyrannosaurus.

The Tyrannosaurus roared at me and chomped me with his plush jaws all the way out of the museum.

“All right,” I said, gesturing to the street across from the museum, where there are countless restaurants. There was sushi and tacos, Chinese food and Japanese hibachi, Indian food, burgers, salad. “What do you want for dinner?”

Rose thought for a moment. “Can we go back to Steubenville for dinner?”

Yes, she could. I bought my own dinner to go, and we set out for home. On the way, we “voiced” a dollhouse story. And in Steubenville, we bought a pound of strawberries and place-and-bake gluten free cookie dough.

I wonder what the world would be like if we just let people be themselves.

Of course, it could be that not everyone’s as wonderful as Rose. But they might be.

Image via wikimedia commons

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.
Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.

motherhood

Previous Post

May 5, 2022

A Word on Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Next Post

May 9, 2022 We All Imagine a Glorious Peace

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who doubted Jesus' resurrection until he saw His wounds?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Peter James Thomas Philip