The kid caught sight of this caterpillar on a field in Indiana a couple weeks ago. He was a weekend-long spectator of a sister’s sporting events, yet managed to deploy some old-school curiosity to find amusement out there in the fields. He identified it instantly and cautioned everyone who came near that this creature looked cute and cuddly but could cause some irritation if handled.

At the time it felt like a decent metaphor for children, and for Scottish terriers that haven’t yet learned to come when called despite years of half-hearted training.

Over the last few weeks my thoughts have turned to this fuzzy thing more times than I’d like to admit. How it had no idea that it was surrounded by people who traveled hundreds of miles for the fanfare of for-profit kid sports, and no control over that fact of its existence. How it had no idea that it was protected, at least for a time, by a child whose capacity for love and empathy is being expanded and limited by outside forces every moment. How if it’s lucky it will become a tiger moth and experience flight.

And now I can’t stop seeing it all as an even more apt metaphor for kids and this world we are shaping for them to someday navigate without us.

And now it’s my birthday and I’m wishing that the capacity for love and empathy among our kids is greater than that of ours.

And I’m thinking of what a tired metaphor metamorphosis is—almost as tired as I am. And I’m also wishing that a certain Scottish terrier would come when called.