Some Thoughts About Children and Childhood
As some of you may know I’ve been doing a lot of childhood-related learning and introspection. The most direct evidence of this is the many posts on this blog regarding education and unschooling. But I’ve also been putting effort and time into understanding my own childhood and my own feelings towards children and the traditional family in general. As my own understanding begins to broaden, and I learn more and more about the nature of children and how that nature is stifled in compulsory schools, churches and bad families, I’ve also been able to see my reactions to children change immensely. It is an ongoing process, to be sure, but I wanted to share some thoughts I’ve had and a few of the specific experiences that stand out to me. But first a little background:
I grew up in a household where answers to probing questions (and when you’re a child, what questions don’t probe?) were “Because I said so” or “Because the Bible says so,” and the solution to so-called “bad behavior” was a belt. I believe now that actions such as this come from the incredibly evil assumption that children are born bad, and that their badness must be remedied by parents who are magically bestowed with the title of Paragon of Virtue by the simple act of reproduction. Especially in the South, at least in my experience, violence and bullying in the home are not only condoned but expected. “Spare the rod,” as it’s said. This violence is, of course, kept quiet. The fact that children are whipped on the buttocks is no accident. Is it both the easiest source for extreme physical humiliation, but also the easiest to hide. Once, I believe in junior high school, I rode my bike with a cousin down the road to a convenience store. Not a road really, a highway, populated by log trucks. It is hardly ever visited by more than a few trucks an hour, but it is dangerous nonetheless. When we got back, there was no discussion on the dangers of riding in such a road or the necessity for helmets or an attempt to connect or teach in any way. Instead I was struck across the lower back with a belt 16 times. I did not stop taking risks. In fact, since then I have taken much larger ones. I did, however, stop respecting my father. Violence can only get you obedience, nothing more. And before I hear cries that this man was only concerned with my safety, then please explain to me why bike safety was never discussed, helmets were never encouraged, and why I was allowed to ride on that same highway to a nearby relative’s at will? Moving on…
During high school I went to live with my mother, and my slightly older sister had a baby girl, Desiree. When she cried it was as if everyone in the house was being personally attacked. Looking back, it pains me to think that I reacted so anxious and bothered at something so natural and necessary. As Desiree got older it became apparent that while I had switched homes, the tactics had not. Spankings were a norm, along with bullying and unquestionable authority, from my sister and mother. I gain small comfort in the fact that I never carried out any of these spankings myself, as I often threatened them and turned her over to her mother.
Let me make one thing clear before I move on. Violence against anyone, and especially against children, who must live and grow with the largest power disparity possible to human beings, is abhorrent and entirely immoral. If you believe otherwise, please have the decency to tell me so that I can stop communicating with you.
It is no surprise to me that when I see Desiree now she switches between extreme openness - in an attempt to gain the affection she lacks - to extremely closed-off - in an attempt to avoid punishment and contempt just for voicing her opinion. She has the tendency to go completely still and quiet when you are angry with her. I watched this develop as she grew. Desi would declare a preference or desire, and she would be attacked for doing so. And so how can one expect anything but silence when you angrily ask her what she wants? She learned all too well that wants are something she must keep to herself.
For so long I was an accomplice to this style of parenting, unwilling to face the effects it was having on Desiree, and the effects it long ago had on me (something I will go into some other time). My younger brother had a child and my sister had a second. My sister’s brand of violence was somewhat mild, although still debilitating. My brother, however, had grown up with our father, and his parenting was a chaotic mix of demands for abject devotion and outright screaming and violence. But still I saw them on a semi-regular basis, and spent each trip tossed between elation at spending time with such wonderful kids and the agony of tiptoeing around the horrible parents in the room. As time went on and I introspected about my own childhood, and learned more about child development, the trips became more irregular and the steps not nearly as light. Then late last year a friend informed me that my brother was having a second child. With a second woman. Whom he hardly knew and is no longer with. I was amazed at how angry I became. I have since made it clear that I will not see him again until he seeks therapy.
I have since spent more time exploring my own childhood, discovering the principles and emotional intelligence one requires in order to be a good parent, and seeing the great struggle that children of even the most common families must endure just to keep their capacity for open thought, curiosity and empathy. I have tried to live by the rule that one should always side with the child, and that children are interested in reciprocation, affection and negotiation. That they wish to moral and rational just like the rest of us. That they can be trusted. And that as a parent, the child’s respect for you must be earned, just like you have to earn it from everyone else. Paraphrasing Stefan Molyneux (since I don’t know the exact quote): “We are choosing to bring a child into this world. She didn’t choose to be a part of our family. And so it is up to us to make sure that could she choose any family on the planet, she would still want to be with us.”
I still have quite a lot of work to do before I can really understand my own childhood, and even more before I could consider having a child of my own. Years of work. But already, just observing the way I feel and act around kids is consistently amazing. Seeing a child makes me grin every single time. Yesterday a dad was pushing a stroller and had another toddler on his shoulders, and I held the door open for them. Moments later I realized that I hadn’t even considered the father, I had opened the door for the kid on his shoulders. Today at the laundromat I watched a few kids play between the rows of washers and dryers. They were happy, but so polite and self-managing. Their parents didn’t constantly harangue them and I didn’t once see a child who had ran too fast or get too loud shoot a frightened glance at this mom or dad, awaiting the coming punishment. One of the kids, too small to join in on the running, strolled around watching everything. I mean everything. There wasn’t a time that I passed by that he didn’t hold eye contact, reading my expression.
What I hope to do in the near future is find a way to increase my knowledge of children and their learning process by getting involved either in the local unschooling community or tutoring of some kind. Or both. Before the current compulsory education system came into place (around 1915, and it’s been tweaked and “perfected” ever since then) children at even the young ages of three and four were doing incredible things. Now a child in public school who can spell “cat” by age seven is considered an acheivement of free education… The school is one of the many chains that hold children back, and it is the chain that I intend to dedicate myself to breaking. If children grow up knowing that they can ask questions, there is no limit to what answers they might find.
Your research shows in this article. By calling out a defense to a possible counterpoint, or simply providing your personal background before an idea before is raised, indicates a vivid inner dialogue.
It’s also nice to see the person come out from behind the reporting of previous articles, indeed no less significant, but filled mostly with responses to other teachers of un-schooling.
I’d be more curious to hear you address parenting in public in more detail. Reading your example in the laundry-mat had caused me to wonder why so often in similar circumstances, parents, beyond necessity, bring their kids in to public places. Particularly adult oriented ones. A parent introduces their children into a situation where the child’s behavior, though completely natural, is considered an invasion on another person’s privacy. I point it out not to fault the person who wants privacy, or the child, but the parent who is voluntarily increasing their chances of irrationally disciplining their child, though not based on the child’s behavior, but on the supposed thoughts and reactions of the adults around them.
There is probably a better way to communicate that, which is why I put it to you.
That is an interesting question, and I’m afraid I just have another one in return. You are right that people are made anxious by children playing in public places. But I have to wonder, why is that? I’ve commented to friends before how wonderful it would be to surround yourself with people, even strangers, who are more than happy when a child comes up to them and attempts to interact. I and others I know always enjoy it, but I understand that most people don’t. Before I would attempt to remedy that, however, I would like to know just what the problem is.
Speaking for myself, my assumptions used to be that children are generally up to mischief and that parents who don’t immediately control them are bad parents. But where do those assumptions come from. I think once again it comes back to the belief are little bad people that must be managed and, as is always evident in this example, that everyone else’s comfort comes before their own. What I mean is, for adults it is quite common to sit quietly, waiting for a table at a restaurant or something like that. But for children everything is about movement, curiosity and discovery. Imagine that you had just been awoken from the Matrix and you have before you a body you have never used. And now you’ve been told to sit still for 45 minutes to wait for your table at Applebee’s. It would be downright painful.
I do not mean to suggest that children should be running the show, doing whatever they please. They should of course be taught about privacy, and more importantly taught to have rich inner lives that do not require the constant fuel of outward behavior. (This is something brought up by Gatto in Weapons of Mass Instruction. Public education supports rowdiness and aggressive behavior since children are never taught the value of thinking, self-direction, solitude and working alone.) So I don’t think the answer is to cut off kids from the adult world. Just the opposite. Those two worlds should be brought closer together. Children should be given more trust and involvement in the world that we grownups inhabit, and grownups should be more interested in treating them with at least as much respect as they would any other stranger.
Of course, all that being said, I would do my best to avoid people who would lash out at a playful child. What do you think?