Living Collectively, Living Willfully
—14 july 2018—
At what age do the distinctions between following others and making your own way, and critically engaging with the world and the orientations of others happen?
I find myself comparing my 30-month toddler to others in situations where I would like him to listen to me.
S, for the most part, would rather wear pants than shorts when it is too hot for any clothes.
I explain, “But all your other friends wear shorts, right? I saw them” I recite his friends’ names at daycare, which I repeat once we get there. I point out the bare legs on the others in comparison to his covered ones.
“It is too hot for long pants, you will get sweaty. That’s why they are wearing shorts!” I plead with him, “S, you must wear shorts. Everyone wears shorts in the summer. Do you see me in shorts and pappa in shorts? Yes!”
I explain the heat, but mostly I emphasize how everyone else is doing it to try to get him to feel excluded and want to fit in. This tactic always follows massive guilt where I question how I am able to, in part, simultaneously invalidate his needs by convincing him that not fitting in is a bad thing, while knowing in my heart that following hegemonic orders is probably the worst example you can set to raise independent and self-determined children.
But if following the leader is a path to docility, how can I re-frame certain situations where the easiest one is to show my son what the other kids are doing? Are the other parents doing the same thing? Yesterday, on the playground, I overheard a mom pointing out all the kids to her disinterested child focused on failing to make a sandcastle out of dry sand. She tells her, “You see, they’re going home for dinner because it’s dinner time, we should leave soon too. Don’t you want to have dinner like the other kids?”
A familiar expression. It’s an expression I use every weekend to prepare my son to leave wherever we are so we can get home for lunch so he can nap. Usually, 10-minute, 5-minute, 2-minute, and 1-minute warnings work, but when they don't, and even sometimes when they do, that expression immediately leaves my mouth.
Maybe there are no answers to my questions in the larger schema because it’s as simple as stop comparing? Maybe I just need to explain that it’s too hot for pants and he will be more comfortable with shorts, or that I am getting hungry and I wonder if he is too so we can come home for lunch. Or maybe he should just wear pants, overheat, and figure it out himself! I laugh at this last sentence. Doting Worrying Magda Mom. Why do I need to present him with what others are doing? If I keep orienting him towards the actions of others will he not learn to then look to the actions of others for validation of his own behaviour?
While on one hand, it is important to recognize the collective relationality of our actions and their impact on our being in the world, we cannot have our needs, desires, and choices be measured by comparison to others.