Having been apart from my children for six weeks, I had almost forgotten all the ways in which the life of a child is really quite difficult. Two examples attracted my attention today.
First, they have almost no power over their own lives because they are either too small, too inept, or simply not allowed to do what they desire. If I want to have a piece of French bread with my spaghetti, I simply cut off a slice, butter up, and enjoy. But if one of my sons wants the same thing, he has to ask me or mom to get it for him. If I want ice cream after a meal, I just take it. But they know they have to ask permission and then probably get help from one of us get it. Such dependence on their parents isn’t quite total, but it’s pretty easy to see how so little ability to control your reality would so regularly lead to crying and screaming.
Second, their sense of what is significant is highly distorted, and it’s distorted in such a way as to make their lives much more miserable than necessary. It’s almost like Tallman’s First Law of Toddlers dictates that the magnitude of a squabble is proportional to the inverse square of the disputed object’s real significance. Hence, a single piece of candy or a dropped nickel can lead to fistfights. Apparently they don’t realize that their daddy has at least enough wealth that clawing each other over such baubles is really quite insane. But since they don’t know the difference between what really matters and what only seems to matter in their own possession, it’s pretty easy to understand how such inequities cause such conflict.
It sure is nice that once we grow up and become mature, we never suffer anything like these sorts of problems in our adult lives at all.
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