"C'mon!"

C’mon!

Last week I put up a piece on Timelessness. This week I offer a reflection on how we as caregivers to young children too often prioritize “moving them along” versus being with them in their interests.

My son Kai and I went to the zoo when he was 2-3 years old a LOT. We had a pass for the summers, we lived close, and we made it a regular part of our routine.

One thing I noticed So Much at the zoo is how often parents take their children AWAY from perfectly life-affirming activities that the children are fully engaged in. Why? Because for whatever reasons the parents feel some pressure inside to move the children along to some new sight or experience. For one day I had an idea to use the tape player on my cell phone to note the phrases I heard caregivers using to push their children along. Phrases, I might add, that seemed to be uttered by persons who often felt themselves to be God’s Gift to Good Parenting in their commitment to be at the zoo with their children and to enrich their children by telling them that they, the parents, knew what the child ought to be doing/looking at/interested in.

Granddaughter:  “I want to see the train.” Loving Grandmother: “No, we have to go.” (Could she at least acknowledge the want?)

Grandfather to girl who is really enjoying looking through a telescope:  “Hey, cmon!” and waving his arms very strenuously. 

Grandfather: “Adam, Adam, Adam!” (The child is not responding until the Grandfather is Very Angry.  Why? Because the child had the inclination to actually get engaged in something he is seeing and doing at the zoo.)

“Let’s move on.”

“Cmon, we’ve got to go now.” 

And the constant refrain:  “Look!” “Look at this!” “Look at what I insist you look at.” Sadly, one almost never hears, “Tell m what you are seeing and help me see it with you.”

“Hey we’re going this way, not that way.”  (Who determined what is the God given right way to go?)  And then the parent turns to another adult and says, sotto voce, “Trying to be a ‘leader’ I kinda think. Ha ha ha.” Oooh, this kind of teasing and disrespect of innocent children chafes me.

“Cmon, cmon.” “Oh, you are in so much trouble. Get outta there. Quit playing with that.” “We don’t climb on there!” (This one gets to me … it manages to be so merged and inappropriate. Here a child clearly IS climbing on something. And a parent invokes the royal “we” and says that “we” do not do exactly what the child is currently doing.)

At the Children’s Museum. A boy is enjoying Thomas the Train so much. Suddenly, his mother turns to him with no advanced warning and says, “Two more minutes and then we have to go.” Understandably, the boy reacted with pain and some noise. What adult would be doing something they enjoy and have someone imperiously tell them they have to stop, for no discernible reason? During the two minutes the boy looked agitated and anxious. As they walk away he cries in discomfort, unhappiness. Never in the entire exchange did she offer him EMPATHY:  “You are really enjoying playing with the trains and it’s going to be hard for you to leave. Let’s work it out if we can.”

Again with a boy really enjoying Thomas the Train.  Very young parents. “Cmon, it’s time to go. Cmon, let’s go get some ice cream.”  He is clearly just enjoying Thomas So Much. Boy is confused, doesn’t want to leave. The parents repeat the phrase. The boy finally says, “No, I don’t want to!” The father replies with menacing demeanor: “You don’t talk to me like that.” (I wanted to interject and say, “Excuse me, you’re wrong, he just DID talk to you like that. And, let’s see, what is talking to you “like that” … your son simply and directly tried to communicate what he wanted. What, are you saying he can’t tell you what he wants and doesn’t want?) Finally, the boy, seeming to try and make something good out of a bad situation, trying to offer fealty and care to his parents, gathers himself, says “OK.” Then smiles and says, “I like ice cream.” The parents looked at each other, laughed, and said to him, “You don’t like ice cream!” Yikes, how confusing. I had a headache just watching them interact with this young child, how must the young boy feel inside?

And just when one might feel hopeless, Kai and I had a miraculous experience. We had been at the zoo and we were walking to our car. Kai had become enamored of walking/jumping/playing on some stepping stones near the parking lot (and I admit there were times on the way IN to the zoo that I thought: “Hey, I thought we were coming to the zoo, not to the stepping stones.”) Yet, in general I was proud of myself that I had taken the inner discipline to slow myself down and Be With Kai as he explored something he was interested in and enjoyed. As he was walking on these stepping stones, another boy and his mother came out of the zoo and the boy seemed to have permission from his mother to join Kai. The mother and I watched and oohed and aahed with delight as the two boys played for perhaps 10 minutes. I was struck by how timeless and at ease the situation felt. I mentioned to the mother, Sarah, how I’d just been making myself aware, during our visit to the zoo that day, how often I heard the phrase “C’mon.” Sarah said quite matter-of-factly, “Children are rushed so much these days.” She certainly didn’t rush things and I could feel the comfort and joy in our boys in this simple moment of being alive bubble up and encompass her and me and almost the whole world in those moments.

I will also say that perhaps my proudest moment of one summer at the zoo was the day when Kai and I went to the zoo and he wanted to go into the Gift Shop, which we almost made a ritual that we started with each visit, and we went into the Gift Shop, sat on the floor playing with trains, moved around the store to other toys and items of interest, played with the series of children and their caregivers who walked into the store and 1 hour later at the time we had to leave the zoo we walked out of the Gift Shop and happily to our car. I had a smile on my face thinking, “We came to the zoo and did not see a single live animal.” Yet, I did allow my son the room to listen to his heart and his heart seemed to guide us to a rewarding experience for that particular day.

Addendum: I wrote this piece some years ago and when I read it now I can almost blush with embarrassment as I recognize the innumerable times in my children’s lives that I have rushed them, when I have prioritized my agenda over their native sensibilities. The woman I met by chance outside the zoo in the above story stands out like an almost other-worldly kind of example of being present and patient with children. Yet, I’m glad to remind myself to be intentional, to slow down, to honor my kids. Out of this kind of commitment arises some of the more memorable and enjoyable parts of our lives together. … Also, in a theme that will be here regularly in my blogging, a thoughtful reader may well wonder about projection. When I think of myself being with my son at the zoo and paying attention to Other People struggling with the energy of “C’mon!,” it is natural to let that awareness sink back towards myself, inside of me rather than outside of me. And the therapy insight is that I myself likely will have a lifelong vulnerability to an internal relationship with myself that has a pushing, demanding, non-empathetic style. —- MF looks inside for a moment: “Yes, that checks out.” I intend to keep an eye on the issue of projection in my blogging. More to come.