Few are the people who outright state that they dislike children. There are misanthropes willing to despise what they once were, but they are rare. Many people, however, are enamored with an idea of what children are. People love pictures of kids, silent and sterile. Children drowsy while recovering from illness win praise, and isolated only children whose personalities have been muted by the constant companionship of adults are safe for public display. Children who refuse to wear shoes or shirts, yell, fidget, hit, and vomit are much less likable. Which, of course, is no surprise.
Yet, it seems children’s best qualities, their irrepressible energy and enthusiasm, come as a package deal with the noise, dirt, and unpredictability of young people. Lonely retirees and childless couples sometimes express sincere yearning for the presence of children, but the living reality can come as a shock. There is grave danger in making an abstraction of the child, both to the child who suffers the depersonalization, but also to the adults who are unprepared to be changed by the experience of children.
Many are the startling examples from the industry of infertility. Mothers who struggle to conceive and carry a child to term are sadly encouraged to isolate and obsess. Spending years with abstractions of children and ideals of motherhood means that the drudgery and physical exertion of ordinary mothering can be a rude awakening. Take, for example, the disturbing letter to the “Dear Sugars” signed “Bad Mom,” in which a mother raves about how much she despises the daily demands of young children.
This is not someone who stumbled into motherhood but, in fact, spent years in pursuit, fantasizing about what children would be like. The letter-writer and her husband, when faced with difficulty conceiving, even took to “non-religious praying” at a homemade altar, literally idolizing their progeny. But after having children, “Bad Mom” found the personal sacrifice and physical demands distasteful. Ironically in a letter of endless whining about her “lot in life,” “Bad Mom” complains incessantly about her children’s whining. The children she accuses of always wanting what they don’t have seem to imitate a mother who wants what she can’t have.
“Bad Mom” claims she has “such a high standard for how I think parenting should be done and yet I am nowhere near where I think I should be.” Never in four years has the woman been to the bathroom alone; never once has a solitary hour of the night been left undisturbed. Nonsense. But “Bad Mom” insists, “There are moments when I have to pull them [her two children] off my like leeches and run to the other room for a hairsbreadth of freedom.”
She proclaims, “I want peace, calm, quiet.” The solace of the tomb will provide such comforts, but wherever life is there is a riot of activity and uncontained energy. The pitiful mother acknowledges, “I know I sound like an a**hole. I probably am, but the minute I’m not dealing with the kids, life is totally great.” Plaintively, she asks, “How could I have misunderstood that this is what parenting is like? How could I have been so ill-prepared?”
How, indeed? Most likely through idolizing children without interacting meaningfully with real children. Occasional babysitting is all well and good but actually living with people who are not fully independent and autonomous will bring discomfort that one must adapt to. And adapt one should. Being changed by the experience of children allows for the development of a richer life and a more meaningful experience of reality. Not in the flashy and sophisticated ways one might expect but in subtle things. The ability to reread stories endlessly, take another walk to the park, rise to meet yet another day of simple and urgent needs. These are gifts that return us to our simple, embodied nature. Instead of distracting us from big ideas, a simple mode of living can wake us up to them.
To flesh out these big ideas, stories are an excellent companion. Stories, like life, contain cosmic mysteries packaged as something inscrutable, not what you expected. So-called “children’s stories” are really just good stories that children enjoy as much as adults. But adults rarely think deeply about children’s stories or even revisit them without the impetus of young children clamoring for stories.
Mitchell Kalpakgian in his dedication to “The Mysteries of Life in Children’s Literature,” thanks his five children “who cured me of intellectual abstraction and theoretical speculation; who brought me down to earth in contact with dirty diapers, hungry stomachs, argumentative temperaments, and chaotic households; who drew my attention from gazing at the stars to real persons, existential situations, particular problems, financial exigencies, and the real nature of things; and who made it miraculously possible for me once again to be a child by becoming a father who loves to play games and sports and read stories as much as any child.” Just as poetically written as “Bad Mom” but with so very much more life.
More simply, Michael O’Brien dedicates his study of children’s literature, “A Landscape with Dragons,” to his six children “who taught me how to read.”
Children, real and embodied, often loud and unruly, are great teachers. There is no substitute.
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