I was always that kid. You know, the one with impeccable handwriting without ever being told, the kind of child who colored between the lines like it was a moral imperative. The sky? Always blue. The sun? A reliable yellow. My crayon box wasn’t just art supplies—it was my personal compass, guiding me through the wilds of childhood chaos. If the world was unpredictable, at least my skies had a sense of order.
Then I became a parent, and the universe delivered a plot twist with the subtlety of a confetti cannon in a library. My child is the polar opposite of me—creative chaos with a side of glitter. Where I thrived on method and structure, he’s the type who treats boundaries as more of a vague rumor, something he heard about once and then promptly forgot. It’s like watching someone who was born to color outside the lines—not because he’s rebellious, but because he genuinely doesn’t think the lines apply to him.
One day, I decided to take him to an art museum. Did I dream of us bonding over classical art, perhaps a shared nod of appreciation for the delicate brushstrokes of Monet? Of course not. I just wanted some relief from the sun and a nice, air-conditioned room. If the museum had a café with iced coffee, even better. At the very least, I could hope for a bench where I could rest my weary feet while he ran around like a tiny art critic.
What I didn’t expect was for him to stop dead in his tracks, staring up in awe at a Mark Rothko painting. Now, Rothko’s work is basically giant rectangles of color stacked on top of each other. Yet here stood my child—who couldn’t sit still long enough to finish a sandwich—completely transfixed by Rothko’s hazy layers of color. Maybe it was the bright, bold shades, just like him. He’s only three, after all. But the way he stood there, absorbing the painting like he was at a spiritual retreat, made me pause. Maybe I’d been so caught up in lines and structure that I’d missed the power of simplicity and feeling the art, not just seeing it? …Nah.
Fast forward to last week, when I set up some paper and paints for what I hoped would be a calm, creative afternoon. Calm being the optimistic keyword. My child immediately grabbed the vibrant green paint and a soft lavender because, as he proudly told me, “Mommy likes purple.” His tiny brush hit the colors, and I braced myself for what I expected to be a glorious mess of swirls, splatters, and who-knows-what.
But something unexpected happened: he started channeling Rothko.
With great purpose, he slapped two giant rectangles of paint onto the paper—purple on top, green on the bottom. No sky, no sun, just these blocks of color, suspended in some kind of abstract toddler abyss. He stood back, surveyed his creation with the air of a mini art critic, and declared, “I made a Rothko!”
I blinked, trying to process the situation. “You… made a Rothko?” I repeated, suppressing a laugh and a weird sense of pride. He wasn’t wrong. His painting did kind of look like Rothko, if Rothko had been into finger paints and lived in a house filled with Pokémon. But the real magic wasn’t the painting itself—it was the sheer confidence behind it.
In that moment, it hit me: my son wasn’t worried about painting a blue sky or a yellow sun. To him, the world was an endless canvas of possibility. Purple skies? Bright green blocks? Sure, toss in some waves while you’re at it. Why not? He was painting for the joy of it, free from rules and expectations.
It’s funny how, as kids, we all start out this way—wildly creative, with no second thoughts about painting a sun purple or the sky green. But somewhere along the way, we’re told that suns have to be yellow and skies must be blue, and we just sort of go along with it. We stop pushing boundaries. We become neat, orderly little versions of ourselves, perfectly coloring inside the lines. But my three-year-old son, in all his paint-covered glory, reminded me that the rules we follow aren’t always as important as we think.
Watching him paint that day was like witnessing freedom itself. He didn’t care if his purple-and-green masterpiece looked like it belonged in a gallery or, more realistically, on the fridge. What mattered was the act of creating, the joy of expressing himself exactly as he wanted to. He wasn’t painting to impress anyone or to get it “right”—he was painting because it felt good to create.
As I stood there, looking at my son proudly admire his work, I had to laugh. There he was, reinventing Rothko in our living room, while I—former neat-freak, rule-following extraordinaire—suddenly felt a little bit jealous of his wild, unfiltered creativity.
Maybe I’ll grab some green and purple paint myself, sit down at the table with him, and make my own little Rothko. Or maybe I’ll just let him crank out a few more masterpieces so I can hang them in my office.