Hands To Myself

The other dayI happened to read this New Yorker Article and I have to say it hit me the wrong way.

This was the clip I read from Mike Daisey's site:

Children’s books, parents, and discipline : The New Yorker:

So what should you do when a child throws a tantrum? Many parents, determined not to be cruel or counterproductive, latch on to pre-approved language from books. Walk through a Manhattan playground and you’ll hear parents responding to their dirt-throwing, swing-stealing offspring with a studied flatness. A toddler whirling into a rage is quietly instructed, “Use your words.” A preschooler who clocks his classmate is offered the vaguely Zen incantation “Hands are not for hitting.” A kid demanding a Popsicle is given a bland demurral: “I’m sorry, but I don’t respond to whining.” (The preferred vocal inflection is that of a customer-service representative informing an irate caller that the warranty has, indeed, expired.) The brusque imperative “Say ‘please’!” has been supplanted by the mildest of queries: “Is there a nicer way to say that?” The efficacy of this clinical approach has not been confirmed by science, but it certainly feels scientific, in part because the parents conduct themselves as if their child were the subject of a peer-reviewed experiment.

I bristled immediately.

I have had a few days to cool down, reflect, and gather my thoughts. I have decided not to take the article personally. Because, actually, it's a very good article.

I disagree, however, with a lot of what the author says. I agree, children's books have changed. The characters are different. But where Zalewski finds bratty children in need of discipline, I find active and highly imaginative children who act before they think. He thinks the things these children say are cheeky. I think they are innocent comments that happen to be funny. And also, I like these books. They are not boring. The kids in the books, be they monster or pig, act more like the real children I have encountered in my life than, say, Little Bear or Caillou, both of whom I would like to banish from my home.

Zalewski is right about one thing. Walking through a park in the city, or almost anywhere, and you'll get the above scenario. He's right about the emotionless distance, the toneless quality in many parents voices as they repeat these seemlingly meaningless phrases. "Use your words." "You get what you get." "This isn't a choice." I say each of them hundreds of times a day.

But please don't judge too harshly. Perhaps Zalewski has no children, or perhaps he has one, a very calm, silent, do-as-you're-told type who never pushes limits. Or perhaps he has a child that magically eats everything he should and has a schedule that ensures she's never late for a nap. Because sooner or later every child throws a tantrum, pushes back, and expresses discontent in a way that is inappropriate for the adult world.

Maybe that woman who is staring off into space as her child screams for a popscicle is actually counting the glasses of wine she will consume once she has put her child to bed. Maybe that odd, disconnected tone of voice that mother is using as she says "we do not hit our friends" is actually a vallient effort to cover up waves of rage at her hyperactive four-year-old. Perhaps, if she didn't turn into a robot, someone would have to call social services.

My point is, parenting is hard. These tactics exist for a reason. Yes, sometimes their points are lost. But at others they really do work. No parent is perfect, and we're all, most of us, doing our best to raise our kids and not go crazy.

And if that means I can pick a story about a pig that fibs during her Summer Vacation Oral Report, then I'm going to go ahead and do that. I don't think my kids are any worse off for it.