Four Eyes

As of this week, my two youngest children now have glasses. They are five and three years old. My heart hurt a little to see them in their new flexible frames at such a young age, even though I suspected they would eventually need glasses (both Mark and I wear glasses).

Going through the process with the kids, I was reminded of my own experiences getting glasses when I was seven. My parents discovered that I needed them when I stopped being able to read street signs (we played a lot of car games as kids). At the optometrist’s urging,  I started wearing contact lenses at the age of 12. Because my prescription kept getting worse, she hoped that the rigid gas permeable lenses would help to keep my eyes from changing so rapidly. It worked.

I’ll never forget that first time I was able to see myself in the mirror without glasses. Up to that point, my reflection was too fuzzy to see. I only saw myself without glasses in photographs. In school, the glasses definitely made me a bit more self-conscious and shy in school. I was already one of the “smart kids” and glasses made me look the part even more.

I can’t help but wonder how the glasses will affect my kids. So far they’ve taken to them, but I wonder how this will change as kids get older, more critical.

I usually only put them on when getting ready for bed or working at home, but I want my kids to feel confident wearing their glasses in public.

Ah, parenting and the baggage we carry with us from our own childhood.

Published by Valya

Valya Dudycz Lupescu has been making magic with food and words for more than 20 years, incorporating folklore from her Ukrainian heritage with practices that honor the Earth. She’s a writer, content developer, instructor, and mother of three teenagers. Valya is the author of MOTHER CHRISTMAS, THE SILENCE OF TREES, and the founding editor of CONCLAVE: A Journal of Character. Along with Stephen H. Segal, she is the co-author of FORKING GOOD: An Unofficial Cookbook for Fans of The Good Place and GEEK PARENTING: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family (Quirk Books), and co-founder of the Wyrd Words storytelling laboratory. Valya earned her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her poetry and prose have been published in anthologies and magazines that include, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Kenyon Review, Culture, Gargoyle Magazine, Gone Lawn, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium. You can find her on Twitter @valya and on Mastodon.social @valya

One thought on “Four Eyes”

  1. Sharon says:

    I know what you mean. I started wearing glasses at age 8. And then contacts but not until early 30s. But I haven’t been able to wear the contacts since last June, and still have the “can’t go out with the glasses on” attitude. So if your children can grow up thinking they look fine with glasses as well as without, that would be great.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *