I drop my two-year old off for daycare most weekday mornings. I normally say goodbye with some more-or-less stock phrase, like “have fun, buddy!” I can hear other parents nearby saying other similarly expected things, like “I love you!” or “Don’t worry, I’ll see you in a few hours.” Solid, classic, timeworn parenting phrases.1 But some parents like to offer more bespoke parting words, phrases less common, and, therefore, more memorable. One parent in particular often leaves her 2- or 3-year old son with these words: “be a leader!”

This farewell phrase immediately caught me off guard—and piqued my interest—for a number of reasons. The first thing that I wondered was what this phrase could possibly mean to such a young child. Can a three-year old be a leader? What does that look like? Who are they leading, and where? Surely we’d prefer the teachers to do the leading, at least at that age?

Which leaves open the question, though: even if “be a leader!” is not the right parting phrase to leave for a three-year old, still, some might think this parent has the right idea, just a bit too early: perhaps this would be a good thing to say when dropping off a second grader, or a fifth grader, or an eighth grader? But I’m not so sure. Indeed, I’m not sure this phrase would be a good thing to say to one’s child, even if they were heading momentarily over to the National Mall to be inaugurated as the next President of the United States.

Continue reading on substack at: https://open.substack.com/pub/phenomenologyeastandwest/p/be-a-leader