In Rad Dad: dispatches from the frontiers of fatherhood Ian MacKaye says in an interview to trust my kid. Iain is two, and already I don’t trust him. I don’t trust him to not scratch the DVDs (just the other night he was pushing the Scrat Pack bonus disc from Ice Age: Dawn of Dinosaurs along the floor like it was a “choo choo chain”). I also don’t trust that he won’t try to stuff two discs into the DVD player. In his toddler state I simply do not trust him to not break or lose things in general.
This reaction seems founded enough: I tell myself I am just helping him explore his world in safety. I say that I can’t afford to buy Toy Story 3 for the third and fourth times. I have a lot of explanations, actually. They’re all bullshit.
Ian also said “with a child is born a parent.” It’s not only Iain who is exploring a new world, taking lessons from his experiences now into his life in the future: I am learning, too. Like him, I am conditioning myself, I am developing patterns. So what will my muscle-memory have me do when my eight-year-old son explores his surroundings, that larger environment which will be available to him on a bike and with friends? What knee-jerk reaction will hurt my relationship with him and his chances to develop when I “protect” him in his 16th year?
In my previous post I talked about how ahimsa does not let us worry because it’s an act of negatively judging our loved ones’ abilities to handle life. What I am talking about now is an extension of that into parenting, though it is a tricky thing to consider. Am I thinking correctly in worrying that Iain will ruin his DVDs? Hell yeah I am! Left to his own devices, the kid will scratch and break every one: he simply does not yet understand the cause and effect concept of scratching dics = no more Buzz, “doggies”, or “di-osaurs”. But do I really have something real to worry about?
You know what happens when I worry? I freak out. When I don’t trust my son I am not his friend or his mentor: I am this crazed loon jabbering on about the cost of material crap, waving my arms and buffooning about as if some plastic circle I spent way too much on at Best Buy is actually worth presenting a message of anger or frustration to my son. It’s ridiculous. Yes the plastic circle cost me a couple bucks, but the kid remembers everything, and it’s not worth me creating so early in our relationship this idea that material crap is worth losing our wits over, and that daddy doesn’t trust Iain, and that it’s OK to fuss and yell and storm about when we are frustrated.
So here’s what I do when I find myself acting silly like this. I play some worst case scenarios. What’s the worst thing that might happen if Iain destroys all of his DVDs? Hell, I might stop letting the TV baby-sit him when I need a couple more minutes of sleep or am too worn out for another round of “giddyup daddy”. Wait, that is best-case scenario. Worst case is that I will go back to Best Buy and spend all of Iain’s college money on more mind-numbing crap. Oh, by the way, Netflix has pretty much everything he likes to watch: I can stream it straight to my TV whenever I want.
Oh, did I mention that I’m the one who has all of the DVDs stacked at toddler level? Who is it that truly can’t be trusted to make sure the DVDs don’t get scratched or jammed into the DVD player?
As an aside, this whole topic teaches me a lot about another of the Yamas: aparigraha or “non-possessiveness. I have a hard time not looking at myself and the way I attach myself to things as I’m trying to explain to Iain that not everything is his. Why should it not be? Why do I have to separate what is mine from what is his? And how am I building the idea of community and sharing when I am always reinforcing the idea of “mine” instead of “ours”? It’s time to pay attention to our lessons we are teaching beyond our words. How much do we share as adults that qualifies us to instruct our young ones what it means to share?
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January 3, 2012 at 10:17 AM
Mom
There is a fine line because the people in life that you remember and respect in life had a firmer hand in what you did…in reality a parent can’t always be a best friend! I see in the restaurant business children that rule their parents. But I totally get your point, place things at their level and then you are taking that risk and maybe that item wasn’t worth tender feelings. Later in life you, as a parent, have frightmares and they only intensify through life and get more vivid! Such as you opening the door going down the freeway 80 mph by Kolob, that could of been quite tragic for me and I replay it over and over in my mind still.
A good example is my father and your grandfather whom you have great respect for, he could be quite stern but in the end you knew the extent that he would love and protect you!
January 3, 2012 at 4:35 PM
gurujesse
Good points, Mom
I agree it is our responsibility to safeguard our children against dangers which they have not the capacity to foresee, particularly when they lack a full understanding of cause and effect (i.e. opening a car door on freeway may result in death). In those cases it is our duty to prevent as much as we can foresee. But what we must do is trust that our kids will not mess up their lives: that everything will be OK with life if they make mistakes. In fact, we all become so much stronger and more wise through our mistakes that many times our preventing them of such experiences is tantamount to stealing from them. So yeah…the line between when to protect and when to give space may be fine indeed, and dependent on individual circumstances. My goal is not to instruct, or act like there is only one model, but to inspire other parents to think about their parenting in new ways.