The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett

put her grade, turned the test over, and spent the remainder of the hour drawing a beautifully shaded landscape on the back. When my mother found out what Steph had done, she laughed.
    I was perplexed by my mother’s response. How could she take this so lightly? “Because your brain works this way,” she said, pointing to the reading comprehension questions, “and Stephanie’s brain works
this
way.” She flipped the test over to show the landscape drawing. “And you know what? You’re both going to be fine.”
    Of course, at the time I had no idea there was anything remarkable about my mother’s reaction to Stephanie’s differences. It was just the way things were. But I believe it was from her example I learned that
everyone
has an intrinsic talent, a contribution to make, even if it comes in an unexpected form. And I began to believe that each person’s potential to achieve great things depends on tapping into that talent as a child.
    Maybe my mother would have been more worried if Stephanie’s gifts had been less pronounced or less immediately apparent. As it was, the beauty of my sister’s work awed adults, more than once bringing a casual observer to tears. In any case, instead of browbeating Stephanie over her failings, my mother focused instead on her gifts, choosing to do what she could to nurture Stephanie’s passion. Mygrandparents were generous, but not ones to splurge, so we didn’t have a lot of money to spare. Yet Stephanie didn’t have just one paintbrush; she had ten, of every size and thickness and type, as well as an enormous box of expensive European colored pencils.
    When Stephanie turned eight, my mother had some kitchen cabinets installed in the laundry room at the back of the house, and that became Stephanie’s studio, an area where she could store her art supplies and draw and paint to her heart’s content. Most important, these gifts were given freely, without any expectations. Stephanie never felt that she had to churn out masterpieces in her studio; my mother was simply giving her a place to be herself.
    Stephanie is an artist today, and she teaches the subject for a living. Her portraits of my children are among my most treasured possessions. My mother’s approach to Stephanie’s challenges showed me how viewing a situation that seems bleak under a different lens can reveal a gift and a calling.
    I had always encouraged the children in my daycare to lean into their passions, and over the years I saw how astonishing the results could be when they had the opportunity and resources to do so. When I noticed Elliott, one of my daycare kids, putting his fingers into the screw holes at the back of Michael’s brand-new television, I drove straight over to the nearest electronics repair store (remember those?) and told the guy behind the counter that I’d take all his hopeless cases—all the radios and televisions he couldn’t fix. “As long as it’s not radioactive or broken in a truly dangerous way, I’ll take it,” I said. What looked like a gigantic pile of junk to most people became hours of fun for Elliott, especially when I presented him with the brand-spanking-new, candy-apple-red, six-head screwdriver he’d need to take everything apart.
    My foraging habit turned into a family joke. By the time I’d been running the daycare for a couple of years, everyone knew that I couldn’t pass by a garage sale or a thrift store without finding some present for the kids. Michael would roll his eyes and pull over before I’d even ask. At the Salvation Army, I found old alarm clocks for Elliottto take apart and fix and an expensive but never-used watercolor set for artistic Claire.
    I’d seen the attention the kids in the daycare gave to the activities they loved and the way they flourished when they were given the time and space to pursue those interests, so it was never a surprise years later to field calls with updates from grateful moms. That was how I learned that so many of