Learning from the bairn
When your kids suddenly know more than you
There’s a tipping point as a parent when your children begin to know more than you. My tipping point has happened earlier perhaps than most with my second child, because firstly, he is a fanatic and secondly, I am not well versed in the dark arts of knowledge accumulation. To put it simply, the tables have turned, and I sit for long stretches listening to him regale me with highly detailed information on several topics, often interrupting him to let him know, I haven’t kept pace.
He rushed into my bedroom the other day and requested that we needed to find cash and find cash fast. After initial questions ensuring he hadn’t become tangled in a crime ring, I found out the cash was needed to travel to London to see ‘the Determination Symphony perform a one-night-only Undertale concert, featuring a 25-piece orchestra performing Toby Fox’s legendary music from the game.’ So many words in his pitch have only recently made sense to me: Undertale, Toby Fox, game, legendary music.
Before his birthing and subsequent growth into a fanatic on many topics, I had no understanding of the indie game world. Not simply the types of games or how they were played, but also how some games provide a rich and full creative, artistic and exploratory experience for an entire community. Undertale is such a game. Created by an indie gaming and composing savant Toby Fox ten years ago, it became a surprise smash hit. The way my kid has described this game to me over the years is almost poetic and there are moments in the game that have brought him to tears. I tried playing it a year ago, to understand the child that had emerged from my body, but I didn’t have his observation or understanding of the layers of meaning.
But I am entranced by his deep knowledge and respect for the work of Fox. So, I checked my bank balance and sadly informed him we couldn’t swing a trip to London in this next decade – and was there anyway we could hear it online? He shook his head, hung it low, and walked out of my room. But there must be a magic element to this Fox kid and his work because only days later, divine intervention befell us. I saw that Orchestra Victoria, that jewel of an orchestra in this state, was performing a night of Indie Game music and YES, they were going to feature Undertale. What sort of witchcraft was that?
So, with tears in my eyes I told my child that we would find ourselves immersed in the work of Toby Fox as interpreted by Orchestra Victoria. He was breathless with excitement. But why? I wondered. What could this music possibly mean to have him desire so much to hear it at the hands of Orchestra Victoria? So, I interviewed him on the subject:
Jacinta: Why is this music so important to you?
13-year-old: Because it conveys so much emotion in the game. Each character, each place has a recurring motif, and those motifs are used to foreshadow things that will happen. There are 42 different endings, so the music feels like it’s been written for me and my game.
Jacinta: How will you feel listening to Orchestra Victoria play this music?
13 year old: It will be emotional to hear the orchestra play this music because I feel like I have a relationship to it that’s mine. Toby Fox made this ten years ago and he made it so well, that it became something bigger than he might have imagined.
And then, finally seeing that what he’s tried to explain to me for years now might be finally dawning on me, he took me through the soundtrack and pointed out the connection of the different pieces to each other. How one theme is resolved by another, how the music explores the depth of emotion and fun that the game has brilliantly created. He explained how the sonic palette is diverse – limited in some pieces and expansive in others – but designed perfectly for a deep relationship to his game.
I am so grateful of the respect an orchestra of this calibre will give to music lovers who come from all sorts of inspirations. That the music will find its way to be played at the Hamer Hall, outside of his bedroom, where he will be with his people who also appreciate the art and depth and brilliance of these compositions. But instead of watching the orchestra, I might have to just have my eyes on him, watching as he is fully immersed in one of the greatest musical experiences of his life so far
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Jacinta, I read this slowly, as if your words had their own score beneath them—rising, resolving, quietly crescendoing around a mother’s awe.
What a luminous thing it is to witness your child know something you don’t—& to sit with that, not in defence or distance, but in reverence. The way you hold his passion, the way you let it school you, is a kind of love that doesn’t announce itself. It listens. It learns the language. It finds its way into the concert hall.
I’ll admit, I wouldn't know Toby Fox from a foxglove, but the way you wrote of his music? I swear I heard it too.
What a gift—to give your son not just a ticket, but the sense that what he loves is worth gathering for. Worth orchestras. Worth your eyes, tracking not the stage but the way he leans forward, held by sound.
Thank you for letting us watch you watching him. That’s where the magic lives.
They continue to grow exponentially, beyond the realms of our own understanding.
I firmly believe that my youngest son is the smartest person I have ever personally known. He continues to blindside me with information that blows my tiny mind!
As you so eloquently put it, how does this person that emerged from my body, know and understand the things that he does?
How much more is stored in that incredible brain of his? And when I look back over the generations that have come before, I wonder where did it come from? Is he just a product of his parents? Or is it something far more magical?
All we can do is continue to love, support and encourage their interests. Participate when we can, otherwise sit back and watch in awe at their achievements.
All I can add Jacinta, is buckle up for wild ride!