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"I ain't no Einstein, Bubba." ByJONATHAN GIBBS
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Forget Beaver. Leave it to Nietzsche (Freddy), a man who could be described as The Anti-Norman Vincent Peale, to best summarize he perspective of those who view parenthood with trepidation and repugnance: “Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.” Coming from a guy who also famously declared, “God is dead,” this should not be so surprising; but on the other hand he was not a man without compassion, as he died after a psychotic episode triggered by the witnessing of a horsewhipping. Perhaps then, it is possible that human kindness can stand alongside fear – and even dislike – of children.
And so it is that the very idea of parenting is a polarizing activity that can sterilize or terminate friendships by driving off those who are in either of the two camps, parent and non-parent. Those who do not have children see the children-bound as dippy, overly sentimental mush-brains who put too many bad, abstract sunrise and tree pictures with horrid color patterns on their refrigerators; and those who are children-bound see the childless as shallow, fun-chasing introverts with unhealthy attractions to furry mammals that they end up speaking to as if they were humanoid children. They look at our children as if they’re Mormons in a strip club and we look at the childless as if they are lap dancers at an Amish wedding. We are both uncomfortable and fearful that the interloper at opposite ends of the child spectrum will embarrass us into a crazy reaction.
Both sides are right. And both sides are wrong.
One of the difficulties we child raisers have is we have too much information about how we are supposed to raise children. This period of too much information coincides with it also being a time of child-rearing terminology being language expanded and politically corrected to the point of stupefaction. We don’t ‘adopt and then spoil fat, disorderly dummies with acne and an overbite’ anymore, we ‘over-parent our pre-owned, hyperactive, developmentally-challenged, over-parented, passive-aggressive, nutritionally-challenged, special-needs post-toddlers by incorporating them into our lifestyles.’ Soon we won’t be able to label our kids’ classmates we disapprove of as ‘bad kids,’ we’ll have to call them ‘Dismalists.’
Anyway, over parenting, also called helicoptering, is perhaps the easiest pitfall for a parental pratfall. I don’t know how such behavior maximizes or retards our human potential and I can’t imagine how it presses our DNA through the social sieve we call high school, college and job fairs to form a better-adapted genetic Mush for the Future. And I don’t really care all that much, because I probably can’t change my own mix of flow-going live-letting and control-happy goal-setting. But I do know me a thing or two about my own behavior by watching myself parent over the past three years I’ve had to be a parent. So here are a couple of things:
* All parental units tend to ascribe superhuman attributes to their children. My son’s interest in the Thomas, the Tank Engine book series – and his ability to memorize whole passages has me thinking he will soon lead a book club dedicated to all book Thomas. “Yes,” I can hear him say in this scenario, “James is a Really Useful Engine, but the underlying menace he displays toward the Station Master adds a dynamic to the pwot” [hey, he’s three-years-old] “that keeps your interest as the story unfolds. And Percy’s flirtation with Emily, the Steamy, even as she makes known her interest in the more exotic Diesel of the Devious Deeds episodes, infuses the storyline with a tragic pathos to which all shunned lovers can relate.”
* We did not go the Baby Einstein route. First of all, we were afraid it would lead to Nathan growing a rodentish, pelt-like mustache, affect a bed-head hairstyle and fill his chalkboard with complicated equations that would leave us befuddled. Besides, Einstein was famously ‘not-too-swift’ as a young person, so why would we want a late bloomer that would grow up to throw our concepts of time and space into a tizzy? Einstein helped explain the Brownian Movement theory of suspended particles in liquids, but we are really only looking for Nathan to suspend movements of any hue until a potty seat is close by.
But the Baby Einstein methodology is here, probably to stay, alongside Spock (the doctor, not the Vulcan, who teaches children tolerance by rising to prominence despite pointy ears) and the “What to Expect” series. The whole point series seems designed to make a parent feel inadequate if his or her child doesn’t do Mandarin ballet and know at least four Etruscan diphthongs. It can only be hoped there aren’t a number of other Baby Somethings designed to flesh out the whole panorama of societal representation. Some of these we hope we never see are:
Baby Amin. It’s safe to say nobody really likes a leader goin’ all dictatorial and bloodlusty on us.
Baby Dahmer. Cannibalism is not an acceptable dietary choice and it cannot be explained away as a ‘meat fetish,’ it’s just way wrong.
Baby Lohan. Pick something: Stupidity or substance abuse. But not both, at least not at the same time.
Baby Ruth. We don’t need our children engaged in early childhood puberty and sexuality discussions with a German accent.
Baby Manny. Kids are already self-absorbed, and there are already plenty of people around them to praise them for the one thing they do really well.
There are a couple of Baby Something programs that could be helpful. Baby McGyver, for instance, would be really helpful around the house, doing things like turning a four pack set of binkies and a couple of swimmy diapers into a rubber life raft when the Flood of All Floods sweeps across our state. Or, an entertaining Baby Letterman, equipped with a dry sense of humor for those late night feedings.
So where does this leave us, the two main divisions of our species, the childed and the childless? Well, we have to find common ground. And that is where I will be in next week’s Bloggin’ Old School.
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