Thursday, December 18, 2008
Life Her Uncertainty
Posted by Charles Mudede on Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 2:13 PM
Walking at the corner of Second and Pike, my daughter (age seven, face framed by fake fur, looking up at the falling snow and the row of high-rises) says to me: "It's like we're in a snow globe." That was her at her best. A few moments later, however, she was at her worst. I asked my daughter if her childhood was happy or sad, and she could not provide a clear answer: "I don't know, I cant say."
I asked her the very same question six months ago, and there was no difference from the answer she gave me today—I'm not sure, how do I know, that's not something I think about. But if she doesn't shape a hard answer or a judgment soon, she will certainly miss her only childhood. She needs to grasp it as it is happening and not after it's over. I will ask her again in six months and express my disappointment if she's still uncertain about the status of her experience. Gnothi seauton. It is never too early or too late to know thyself.
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So she is at her best when she processes unfamiliar experience in terms of capitalist kitsch, and at her worst when she angers her father by parroting his reflexive penchant for question and uncertainty over answer and conviction.
The children, they are always exactly what the parents deserve.
Let her be a kid and just be, as opposed to thinking about whether she is happy or not. With the latter, she might decide that she is not happy, and, as a child, she has limited opportunities to change her circumstances. In the former, she just gets to be happy or unhappy with each moment. And if she is unhappy more than she is happy, she will not know it.
Aaaaand I'll stop pontificating now. And apologize if it seems presumptuous to tell you about your own kid.
In fact, her answer is clear: She doesn't know. A perfectly valid and honest answer.
I understand that you might be trying to encourage self-awareness, a valid goal for a parent, but the more you continue to ask her that same question --I would humbly suggest-- the more you will never get the answer you are actually looking for, and only create a frustrating situation for the both of you, limiting self-awareness.
You are asking essentially a 'yes or no' question ('happy or sad', select one), but the answer will never be 'yes' or 'no'. At 38 I cannot answer yes or no to that same question. Can you answer it with an unqualified single word reply? I will wager that you would not.
You already have her answer. It's a real answer.
Accept it.
You are a fucking moron. What's wrong with you? Are you just a troll who somehow manages to get paid?
And children don't know what is meant by "childhood," how could they? They're too busy figuring out how the world works, what's normal, what's not, what society wants from them, etc. Most children think their parents are "normal," until they start to get to know other kids families. It's all about comparison and hindsight, two things kids are lacking in.
If that's her at her worst, you lucked out. Enjoy the conversation and don't inject too much of your own neuroses into it.
Either way, I can't shake the feeling your "daughter" is really just a cantaloupe in a wig with a calculator taped to it.
"Excuse me, sir, I need you to leave the Baby GAP. There have been complaints."
"I hear it, your request. The clarity of your secession is a bronze and oiled tongue across my foot. *holds up cantaloupe* Jessica is dreaming, and her dream is topless America as a child, bleeding from her teeth (medical nemesis) as a ruby comes (the release) from her navel."
If this story is true you seriously need to rethink what childhood is all about. Come on, think about it.
If she says it is sad what are you going to do about it?
The fact that she does no think about it is the best answer she can give you.
Be very wary of where you tread in your quest for your child's self-knowledge, Charles. Childhood is the bliss of that naïve, selfless wonder.
Be patient.
At present she cavorts in the Eden of innocence and her reply is that of an imagined pre-Fall Eve asked of Adam, "So what do you think of this place, huh?"
Do not forget that the transgression that brought paradise crashing down around the mythic pair was not a disobedience, as some would encourage you to believe, but rather that they chose to "eat of the fruit of The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" and with it became as gods, incapable of innocent, unmediated experience of the Now, the innocent banished from Paradise by knowledge of "paradise"; of the distinction between their present boundless happiness and the sadness that may well follow.
Why, Charles, would you be in such a hurry to feed your own spawn this poison fruit?
Make her self-aware and, yes, she will have knowledge -- but only at the cost of her now easy, "childlike" access to real Truth.
When she can no longer experience the world openly, unimpeded by the filters of Self and its doubts, she will be able to give answer to your weighty questions. When she can hold childhood in her hand, turn it over and examine it from all sides, you will have an answer. And she will at that moment have "childhood" forever after as a thing to know, to ponder over, reminisce and think about -- yet never again as an experience to simply enjoy.
Be patient, Charles. Her self knowledge will come all too soon and without your urging. And then both of you can, together, morn the loss of that child that you once were.
I work with kids daily aged 6 to 16, and though I used to have the above opinion, it's rapidly changed. They're blank slates for a good long while. And usually perceptive and wise beyond their own recognition. Your daughter's statement is yet more proof of this. I kind of want to meet and hang out with her.
Listen harder to the snow globe comments, and put less pressure on her self analysis.
And uh, Charles? Lay off the kid. I totally agree with @8 - this is not a yes or no question.
Grow up.
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