July 23, 2004
Stay within the lines
Here's something that continually bothers me, that I'd like to share with the approx. 5 people who read this blog.
We grow up learning things, and discovering facets of how life is, how things work etc. At some age there are people that seem to cement those discovered facets into their reality, and that's all there is. I've been guilty of writing off things I don't understand sometimes, I know that, but to disregard or be oblivious to something that is obvious and important, just because it doesn't fall into your "reality cube" is insane and not productive.
Read this great poem by Blaga Dimitrova: Multidimensional
Example: A family I know has a very intelligent child, and at an earlier than normal age he began attempting to talk. Sometimes his phrases were discernable, sometimes it was jibberish, but if you took the time you could ususally get the gist of what he was trying to say. Instead of taking a couple seconds and trying to figure out what he was trying to say, the family (grandmother included) just did the jibberish baby talk back to him "booboogababgabha" etc. Finally after a while he just gave up trying, and gave in to their jibber-jabber talk. I'm sure this didn't help his frustration level, or his opinion of his family.
Another Example: Same family takes their newest child to a parade (different kid). Because for some reason they don't think the kid is old enough ( 1 1/2 years) to be interested or enjoy the parade they park the stroller behind another lady (so he can't see). Of course it doesn't take long before the kid starts being bad, yelling, obviously bored. A family member (not in the immediate family, or grandmother) gets the idea "hey, what if I move him around so he can see?", so they do, and gee the kid is excited, and is good from then on.
I also get the distinct feeling that the mother thinks she is very "mature" and "grown-up" (of course she's about 8 years younger than I), so she knows pretty much all there is to know about child-raising, and life. To me, it's more accurately the exact opposite, it's kind of sad because I think she's limiting herself and slowing down her personal growth. Of course you could never say anything to her because it's not even within her understanding that she could be wrong.
Posted by Oorgo at July 23, 2004 12:06 PMA (very) long time ago, I didn't enjoy kids' company at all. Then, somewhere along the way, I figured out that they're just little people. I get sucked into making stupid faces at my sort-of-adopted-nephews (3+ and 1+), but most of the time I just talk to them. We get along famously.
People make such a big mistake when they can't figure out that there's a fully-functioning brain and personality tucked into those little bags of meat and water. And, even better, that they haven't soaked up all the nonsense the older folk would be better off learning to unlearn.
Then, most people don't treat adults as if they're anything other than a set piece, either.
Posted by: dwayne at July 23, 2004 01:58 PMYawn, Stretch
Just got back from holidays.
Kid turned 3
Got my first taste of Dell support (damn Laptop LOL)
I remember my dad saying very similar words to my mom. Of course he was trying to justify a state of the art stereo system that would replace our perfectly good HiFi. He became the only parent on my block that would allow a kid to touch his stereo, every other parent was of the opinion that if a kid touched anything that the new modern area had to offer they would break it. The point he was trying to make is that if we don’t keep up with what is happening now, then we are just like any other parent widening the generation gap.
I like to think that I live by how he felt...thanks for bringing back some memories of him
Posted by: Annie at August 5, 2004 08:13 AM|
|
|