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[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"39573","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","title":"Member Stories","alt":"Member Stories"}}]]I moved to Indiana from Maryland in 2007 to be near my son, then age 3, as a result of the end of a relationship. When I moved here, I had no nearby family or friends, so it was just my young son, Connor, and I. When he spent time with me, I struggled to find things to do with him that were both fun and educational. To be honest, I was a little scared at being in a new town, and I wanted to make sure that our time together created a lifetime of good memories and fostered the same love of exploration and learning that I knew growing up. I was a little frightened that our time together would be spent watching vapid shows on TV until it came time for him to leave. I vowed to make sure that our time together would be spent wisely, and that it would help make him into a good citizen of the world as he grew up. He is, after all, the future of humanity.
From a few prior visits to Indianapolis, I was casually acquainted with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, but we had never explored the entire place. After getting settled into my new place in town, I got a membership and started to take Connor there for visits almost every time we were together. We soon developed a routine—we would get up and have breakfast, then head out to the museum around lunchtime. He would run through the exhibits after we had lunch together there, stopping to see all the varied bright and shiny and moving things that there are to explore. He became enamored by the frogs in the ScienceWorks exhibit, the trains in the AllAboard! exhibit and the ultimate was a ride on the antique Carousel and a romp in the Lilly playhouse. We probably went at least 2-3 times weekly, for anywhere from 4 to 6 hours a trip.
As he grew up, he began to slow down and take note of some of the information on display, and not just the 'gee-whiz' eye candy exhibits. He began to read and become interested in the story behind the exhibits. He wanted to know how the Rueben Wells got into the museum, and learned that if you held your hand over the glass of the frog's enclosure, the frog would come out and move as if it was dinner time.
We spent hours there, whole days together exploring all that there is to offer. It became a second home for us—a place that helped deepen our relationship and be a safe haven in a new town.
I spent part of my time growing up in New York City and spent a lot of valuable time in that city's wonderful Natural History museum. There is a picture of me at about age 7—Connor's age right now—standing behind a dinosaur skull in a glass case. One day, I happened to take much the same photo of Connor, quite by coincidence, standing behind a glass enclosed dinosaur in the Dinosphere. Time had certainly changed between the two pictures; the one of me as a kid was taken with old-school film, the one of Connor with a digital camera; man had just walked on the moon around the time of my picture, and the Space Shuttle program was ending around the time of Connor's. But the same message was clear in each one; museums spark the drive to learn in kids, they fan the flames of a lifetime of asking questions and curiosity about the world around them, they help them see the best that humanity can do and want to contribute to the greater good.
He has literally grown up with, and inside, the Children's Museum, and it has helped make him into the inquisitive, smart, and interactive little guy he is today. It has helped make him into the future of humanity.
Name: Dr. Tony Johnson, member for 4 years
From a few prior visits to Indianapolis, I was casually acquainted with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, but we had never explored the entire place. After getting settled into my new place in town, I got a membership and started to take Connor there for visits almost every time we were together. We soon developed a routine—we would get up and have breakfast, then head out to the museum around lunchtime. He would run through the exhibits after we had lunch together there, stopping to see all the varied bright and shiny and moving things that there are to explore. He became enamored by the frogs in the ScienceWorks exhibit, the trains in the AllAboard! exhibit and the ultimate was a ride on the antique Carousel and a romp in the Lilly playhouse. We probably went at least 2-3 times weekly, for anywhere from 4 to 6 hours a trip.
As he grew up, he began to slow down and take note of some of the information on display, and not just the 'gee-whiz' eye candy exhibits. He began to read and become interested in the story behind the exhibits. He wanted to know how the Rueben Wells got into the museum, and learned that if you held your hand over the glass of the frog's enclosure, the frog would come out and move as if it was dinner time.
We spent hours there, whole days together exploring all that there is to offer. It became a second home for us—a place that helped deepen our relationship and be a safe haven in a new town.
I spent part of my time growing up in New York City and spent a lot of valuable time in that city's wonderful Natural History museum. There is a picture of me at about age 7—Connor's age right now—standing behind a dinosaur skull in a glass case. One day, I happened to take much the same photo of Connor, quite by coincidence, standing behind a glass enclosed dinosaur in the Dinosphere. Time had certainly changed between the two pictures; the one of me as a kid was taken with old-school film, the one of Connor with a digital camera; man had just walked on the moon around the time of my picture, and the Space Shuttle program was ending around the time of Connor's. But the same message was clear in each one; museums spark the drive to learn in kids, they fan the flames of a lifetime of asking questions and curiosity about the world around them, they help them see the best that humanity can do and want to contribute to the greater good.
He has literally grown up with, and inside, the Children's Museum, and it has helped make him into the inquisitive, smart, and interactive little guy he is today. It has helped make him into the future of humanity.
Name: Dr. Tony Johnson, member for 4 years
