uncommons

Rachelle L’Ecuyer, 43, and sons Jacob, 11 (left) and Noah, 9 (center), Maplewood, Missouri.

Last year L’Ecuyer and her sons paid a visit to a local video game store. L’Ecuyer found it startling and eye-opening.

“There were two men and a woman working there, and they all had the same pasty white skin and the same (body) shape,” L’Ecuyer says. “You could tell which were the men because they had hair on their face, but they were all the same shape. And I thought, I don’t want my children to look like this.”

So L’Ecuyer devised a three-step plan to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Step one was eliminating video games and TV on weeknights. Initially, this was to include Friday, but L’Ecuyer relented when her sons protested.

Step two was spending one evening a week together working on an art project together at the South City Open Art Gallery.

Step three was signing up Jacob and Noah for classes on weekends at the YMCA and Gifted Resource Council, while L’Ecuyer, grocery shops and cleans. Afterward, the boys and their mom partake in something that’s fun and cultural.

At first, L’Ecuyer says, her sons wondered, “‘I was in five classes today. Why do I have to go to another one?’ Then we went and they didn’t want to leave.”