Barefoot Dreamer
A life-course reflection moving from childhood wonder through love, family, work, ageing and grateful acceptance of a good life.
"Taught my children how to wonder, now they teach me what they know" — Barefoot Dreamer
For years, the direction of teaching between a parent and a child seems obvious — one way, from older to younger. This line marks the moment that assumption quietly stops being true, and the flow reverses, or at least starts running both directions at once.
The Early Years Set an Expectation That Doesn't Last
In the early years, a parent teaches almost everything — how to walk, how to wonder, how to be curious about the world. It's easy to assume that arrangement is permanent, that the roles are fixed. They're not. They're just true for a particular season.
What Grown Children End Up Teaching
The things adult children end up teaching a parent are often practical on the surface — new technology, new ideas, new ways of seeing something familiar — but underneath that, there's usually something bigger being taught too: that curiosity, once planted, keeps generating new information forever, in directions nobody could have predicted.
Why This Reversal Feels Like a Gift, Not a Loss
Some people might expect this shift to feel like a demotion — no longer the one who knows more. In practice, it tends to feel like the opposite: proof that the wonder taught decades ago actually took root and grew into something with its own independent life, capable of teaching its own teacher.
A Song Built Around Exactly This
There's a song called Barefoot Dreamer that names this exact moment — the reversal, the wonder coming back around, having grown into something new. You can hear it here: https://isenior.com.au/listen/barefoot-dreamer
Related Songs
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