This photograph has nothing to do with tiny, brave humans. At one time, I was one of them. Now, I am an average-sized human, slowly recovering my bravery. However, I noticed tonight that I have only one photo of myself on my blog. I reflected for a few minutes and decided that I couldn't possibly be labeled narcissistic and self-absorbed with only two photos of myself posted to the blog. I am sure that I was thinking something very profound when I Hipstamaticized myself on my kitchen floor just before my 36th birthday. This is what I do when everyone else is asleep; I lie on my kitchen floor topless and play with my camera. There are worse habits.
I began to decide to write about tiny, brave humans as I was preparing the kids for bed this evening. Justin is in Chicago for several days and though I had hoped for the company of my dear brother, I am alone this evening.
As I mentioned in the previous post, I spent last weekend in LA with dear old friends. One couple, M and P, have a three year-old, L. I use initials because it isn't really important to anyone but me who they are. If you really want to know, call me and ask.
It meant a great deal to me when P, a thoughtful woman - a sort of still-waters-run-deep kind of gal - said to me that she felt that my whole demeanor changed when I engaged with her son. As I have, as of late, been troubled by my mini identity crisis, it was noteworthy to me that she should mention that I should consider any kind of work with small children.
Understand: The fact that I am unusually comfortable with kids and that I truly enjoy their company is not news to me. However, when another person not only notices, but mentions, something about which I am already aware, it can't but reinforce my own feelings on the topic.
This has me thinking about myself as a small child and my "grown-up" relationship to little kids, now. I wonder if, as a very small child, I was awkward and standoffish with other small children. I haven't much thought about the effect that I had on others before the age of about twelve or so.
Which is to say, if I can identify with little people as an older person, might it have been complicated for me to relate to my peers if I felt like I was older and different than they were?
I do have memories from a very young age. I do know that I never felt very happy to be a child. Don't misunderstand! I wasn't an unhappy child, I just knew that childhood was an inevitable passage in my life and I think I just hunkered down and bore it.
I do recall with unequivocal clarity a moment in first or second grade - I know that it was first or second grade because I can remember the view from the classroom door as I thought and in those two grades, the view was nearly identical.
In a moment of quiet, the following question came to mind: If I had not been born, where would I be? I am not shitting you - I had phenomenal metaphysical mind shifts at age seven. Now...maybe not. I have a very distinct image in my mind of what I thought about after I posed that question: I imagined a darkness broken only by purplish pink smoke - almost like cotton candy - and I decided that if I had not been born, I would have been floating along in this wispy sunset-lit space with no back and no forwards, no time and no bearings to guide me. I would have been waiting.
It was very hard for me to imagine an Earthly situation to which I hadn't been born. Even small, I felt too unique and too much myself to imagine that I could have just as easily not existed.
Now, bear with me as I become kookoo: What if that is where I DID come from, the purple cotton-candy nothingness? Maybe I remembered it, still. I can't know, obviously, but I do know that I never quite felt like I fit in until I was old enough to start watching after littler kids.
My Mom was a very faithful church-goer. We went every Sunday and I quickly tired of the church school classes that had been organized for my age group. Very nonchalantly, I began to introduce myself to the church nursery. I was perhaps twelve years old. I much preferred to be with the 0-3 age group than my own classmates. I was very happy when another Sunday passed and no one threw me out. Maybe they were happy about my volunteerism; maybe they recognized that I was better-suited to change diapers than belabor the heavy company of fellow pre-teens. I don't know, but to whoever allowed me to stay in the nursery rather than insisting I join those who were my age, thank you.
I think that I was about fourteen when they started to offer me $4.00 an hour to be there on Sunday mornings. Sometimes, I was even called in for meetings during the week. I liked it.
There was never a time in my life when I doubted that I would become a mother. The diaper-changing at age twelve came very naturally to me. I have never had to ask myself that question which seems to plague so many - will I breed? - and for that I consider myself lucky. I knew what I was good at before I was aware that not everyone had that same information.
P and her comment has me putting into words what it is that I like about children.
Mostly, I love children because they laugh. I can make them laugh. Little kids are Mini Grown-Ups, but better. They do not censure or filter very well, a fact which allows for much more honest communication. They are masters of vulnerability, which, ironically, makes them incredibly solid. Generally speaking, if they are pissed, they will let me know. When something is interesting to them, they tell me. If something is funny to them, they laugh out loud without first questioning whether or not I'll understand or share their laughter. I can ask them all manner of absurd questions and they will absorb them quite seriously and give me a serious answer. The serious answer often ends up being funny, and they get that. Little kids understand why the serious is funny much, much better than big people can.
I feel very lucky - almost magical - because tiny people, pre-verbal people, have always liked me. I have always thought that it is simply because they know that they can trust me. Infancy is such a shitty, painful, unpredictable time; there is a reason why we don't remember the first three years of our life. Most likely, it sucked. I have always tried to be an ocean of patience, of quietude, of breath and stability for those little people who were just trying so hard to get bigger, day by day.
When Myles was just a year old, we flew home from Memphis together and ended up sitting next to a pediatrician. That is pure luck, friends. He and I were talking about babies and children and I was flattered to note how impressed he was with my parenting. He told me that he knew of many doctors who chose not to specialize in pediatrics because they were afraid of children. Funny, because if I had studied medicine, it would most certainly have been a specialization in pediatrics. And I'm not just talking about the obvious - if I could choose between having the puke and poo of an eight month-old or eighty year-old smeared on me? I think that the choice is clear.
Although I did once meet a Team Guy at a party who, upon witnessing me have a two year-old Isaiah blow his nose in my hand and then wipe the snot on my jeans, blanched and said, "Oh, fuck. That's my Kryptonite." Yeah, I still haven't killed people, but I can handle phlegm.
Children make life plastic - not the crappy petroleum product, but malleable, changeable, and most importantly, with the infinite potential to be experienced in a new way. My children love me wholly, with abandon. I feel the same way.
My pedagogical philosophy is no more complicated than this: I talk to children as if I value their time, energy, input, and opinion. I talk to them as though they are intelligent. I give them the power to be who they are. I make sure that they can trust me. I don't lie to them. Ever. I hear what they say and then, I respond.
As far as future career opportunities, I'm not sure what this might yield. For the time being, P's comments have calmed me, somewhat, because I do know that I am good at being with small, brave humans and because that is what I do every day, it seems like I am resting on a solid base, even if I don't know what comes next.
