It has always astounded me that people choose to have kids so young. Without an inkling of a sense of purpose in your own life, how could you determine that you somehow know what you're going to raise a kid to be? What is the ultimate objective in raising children? Instinctual yearning for a family? Perpetuity of the human species? Child labor to help with the farm? We all just seem to have kids either because it seems the natural end of relationships or because we love the making of them. Rare few are those who brazenly ask "well why did you have your kids?" It comes off as an affront and usually denotes some criticism of the choice. For some reason, we find the topic itself too sacred to question.
However, I am not here today to tell you why you should or shouldn't have kids. People will go on having them no matter what I say here, and given that inevitability, my time is better spent sharing ideas that focus on helping them. But how does one go about helping these guinea pig kiddos? Gotta help the parents. So, buckle up for some deep psychoanalytic rabbit holes.
One of the most universal characteristics of children is their capacity for playing. Playing is, in one sense, an exploratory behavior. They engage with the world in new ways similar to that which they have witnessed from others all the while incorporating how it feels to do so into determining whether they will behave in that way ever again. They see you touch something, they will touch something. But maybe what you grabbed was too hot to hold for very long, and when they touch the same thing, it burns them because they don't know about its heat or the associated context of time. The kid decides not to touch that again or perhaps is generally more cautious when handling new or unknown objects. This caution can evolve into a great many characteristics down the road, such as curiosity or hesitancy, but I will speak on that another time.
More to the point here: playing is thus more essentially a form of boundary forming. Kids push boundaries in order to know them. As they age, these boundaries become more psychic than physical: they play with ideas like defiance and desire and will push and prod others around them to see what the boundaries are and what they can get away with. Can they get whatever they want by asking? Can they keep pinching you to get a reaction out of you? Can they say no to avoid anything they don't want? Even without the words to form them, they have the inputs and outputs enough to learn where these hypothetical boundaries lie. But there is a secret here, one many but the wisest of us forget:
For the most part, we never stop playing these games.
We continue to experiment with the world, determining what we want, what we don't want, and all our values and vices as we play ever-more-sophisticated games concerning what we can and cannot do.
My favorite rumination of this is a child who's parents fixate on a particular value or vice that they hold and teach their child quasi-religiously that it is good or bad. If, upon bringing up the topic of alcohol, a kid gets a stern response or is told that alcohol is a very dangerous thing, it will invariably establish a new boundary for them to play with conceptually. While the kid may at first take the warning as objective truth, they will eventually hear or witness the opposite from those who enjoy it or through various virtual means. This will create a tension of opposing views that will spur on the curiosity to experience alcohol for themselves. It could also be a weapon, choosing to take that first drink just to spite the boundaries their parents set. My point here is not to hypothesize the different ways a child might respond to what you mention about alcohol but to show you that simply by having some fixation on it, good or bad, you have brought it into the limelight of the child's mind. It is now a thing to wonder about, to fixate on, or to experiment with. It becomes a part of the games we play.
To juxtapose that idea, we have the child of a parent who does not garner any particular outstanding viewpoint on alcohol when the child asks them. Instead, they simply describe what alcohol is, provide the context of why it is different than other drinks people enjoy, and discuss the significance it has to people. Yes, alcohol does often lead people to make poor decisions, but it will not ruin your life for trying it once. Yes, it can be addictive if you indulge in too much too often, but it is not something that will ensnare you by virtue of its existence. It is just something to be careful with and to understand what there is to know about it before partaking. It is a tool, a substance, a thing that isn't taboo, it's just capable of use to great benefit or detriment. With such a stoic approach, alcohol becomes something like any other thing: something to know, nothing to fear. The child might know their parents do not approve of them drinking, but also do not fear them so much as to lie if ever caught.
By reacting in any such strong manner to any such vice or virtue, we establish it as something to fixate upon, be it resulting in fear, shame, pride, or whatever emotions cling to the act. A child will always have that ruminating in the back of their mind, eventually impressing upon them during the course of a choice of impulse. If, rather, they don't think much of it, when the time comes that they are eventually pressured into such an impulsive decision, it will not have such an affluent effect on the actual decision. They will be less influenced by the fear of their parents righteous outrage and more by what they've learned from them. They might instead think normally as they always would, guided neither by fear of crossing the boundary nor desire to cross over it. It is now only a line in the sand, and the choice is made by their more reasonable self.
Can a person simply choose to drink alcohol? Is it always a poor decision? I would garner that most of us would say something like "as long as it is within reason." So I say this: we should do all we can to keep our children within reason. Not in fear, not in ignorance. Our ultimate goal as parents and adults guiding those under us is to impart the ability to execute sound judgment. Their own judgment. We must know it will not mirror our own, and we must also know our journey to attain this same judgment is not over, either. We must continue to improve ourselves just as we wish our young ones to do so themselves. If children grow up surrounded by parents complacent in their knowledge, having determined that they know all right from all wrong and what is what, then the children will either do the same or rebel against you (not necessarily in some dramatic way). Contrarily, if they grow up surrounded by those who aim to grow themselves, less presumptuous and more inquisitive, then they too will model this role of growth.
This all said, there will be caveats. One cannot control or dictate the influences and behaviors of another person entirely. Besides, such control is against the nature of human freedom anyway. Resentment festers in such environs. There will be many more reasons a child might feel pressured to cross these lines we've drawn, but it is better, I think, not to give them a reason to fixate upon it. And even if you feel you must bear to them a dictate of what never to do, at least provide them the notion that their parents are not people to hide from, that they might, no matter the line they cross, come back to their parents for guidance, help, and redemption.
That's all from me for now. Subscribe and tune in for more to come.
I'm glad you're here.
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