Boredom is a blessing
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Inside the Creation Stories of Dancing Mother
Boredom is a blessing
a Photo essay by Mother Mother Binahkaye Joy
Deeply imaginative play comes from being really, really bored.
Being bored is NOT an emergency, parental or otherwise.
Even if there are frowning faces and loud, dramatic wailing, boredom doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong, that something needs fixing.
Boredom signals to all of us that there is an abundance of time and opportunity.
What will we do with this moment? What can it become?
Boredom means there is energy to create, to explore, to dream.
For creatives—which all children are, which all humans are—boredom is our friend.
When we are bored we start to see what was once so familiar in a way we’ve never experienced before.
Boredom expands our sense of what feels possible and grows our capacity to play.
It propels us into unasked questions, unspoken ideas, undiscovered positions, unexplored movements, unusual perspectives.
Boredom inspires us to look at something with new eyes, to touch it with new hands, to reimagine it with new language.
Boredom is a blessing and a generative place for creativity, an ever-present gift for those who stay open and curious.
Mother Mother’s Note:
These screen stills are from a moment of play and discovery with my children. Minutes prior to capturing their delight at building their stick-and-tire tight rope operation, my son was whining about how bored he was. He cried, pouted, flung himself to the ground. I kept assuring him that his boredom was perfectly okay, and that since all his needs were met otherwise (safety, nourishment, health, warmth, connection), he could go ahead and be bored. I told him the best ideas come from being bored. After a while of being bored by himself while his sisters played, he started gathering materials to construct the tight rope, and soon he was laughing and finding joy and amazement in his creation. His sisters joined him in the explorations and they’re still enjoying their invention every time we go outside to play.
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