I listened to this absolutely astonishing podcast . . . Invisibilia? Now I’d better go find it and link to it so you can listen if you want. Hold on a sec . . . there it is. That link is an article about the podcast and its subject, and it contains a link to the podcast itself should you be inclined to listen.
**Side note – I went over our cell plan data allotment this month. I think it’s probably partly listening to so many podcasts while driving. The Stitcher app is amazing, and I love podcasts, and I guess we’re bumping up our data plan by a couple of giga mega whatever-a bytes. I’m a recent convert to this decade old information delivery system, but humor me.**
*Spoiler alert* – The linked story and podcast is about blind people who use echolocation to actually see. Literally, the visual cortex parts of their brain light up just like a sighted person. Obviously they cannot see color, and cannot see far away beyond where the clicks bounce off of, but they actually see general shapes and forms like non-blind people do, if you tell them that they can. The whole point of this story is that if we TREAT blind people as if they can see (and also teach them this echolocation clicking skill), then they can use their ears and clicking tongues to create something approximating sight, and move about the world like a sighted person. Like, ride bikes, walk down busy highways, all of it.
However, *more spoilers*, most blind people never achieve this. And the reason is LOVE. The loving concern of their families keeps them from actually living in a way that would give them more freedom and autonomy. Because you really have to learn this skill as a kid – and parents cannot bring themselves to let a little kid walk next to a highway to learn how it sounds, or ride a bike (clicking all the way) and maybe run into a tree or a pole until they learn how to do it. We treat them as blind, we project our fear of being unable to see the world around us onto them, and our very protectiveness prevents them from a full life. And those people don’t have the visual cortex light up in the same experiment, at least not as much. Point being, they are literally blind BECAUSE they are treated as blind. If they were treated as sighted, they would be able to see! Wild, right?
The bulk of the podcast centers around this one guy who used echolocation as a kid, and whose mom really had to stay strong through his childhood, letting him run wild when all of her friends and colleagues told her she was crazy and was seriously endangering him. And this one time he did actually run into a pole while bike riding, and all her friends were like SEE. SEE WHAT YOU LET HAPPEN TO HIM. And even seeing his knocked out teeth and broken nose, she took a deep breath, got her anxiety in check, and sent him back out there on that bike. Now he’s a fully grown man and lives a life without boundaries.
So I’ve been applying this logic to parenting, a little bit. If she can do it with a blind son, I can certainly do it with fully sighted children. What could my kids do, without my presumptions of their inability holding them back? Here’s an example. Not really on purpose, we never put gates up at the bottom of our stairs. Being lightning quick (as babies are), Craig began going up and down stairs sort of earlier than we would have liked – as a very young baby. And he’s never fallen (touch wood). He’s AWESOME at stairs – better than his brothers ever were (they spent their babyhoods in single story homes). Today at Liam’s baseball game, I saw people rushing to the bleachers as Craig climbed around on them, racing to help this helpless baby on the stairs. They see him as a baby, their mind computes BABY NO CLIMB STAIRS, and they react quickly. But since we’ve never done that at home (partly, let’s be honest, because he’s too fast and we’re not paying attention bc third kid), he’s been able to explore stairs and get good at climbing them, and he doesn’t need their help. Ditto with climbing on the bed. I have too much anxiety to let him play on our king sized bed with his brothers, who love to wrestle and jump up on the bed. I’m afraid he’ll fall, or get jumped on by the boys, or roll over the side. Instead of getting him down so I don’t have to deal with my evolutionary instinct to grab and protect, I’ve been practicing just leaving the room. He never falls. He never gets (seriously) hurt. He has learned how to play up high without falling, because I’m not in there stopping him from getting too close to the edge.
I’m trying to do the same with Jack – and I gotta be honest, it’s tougher with my oldest. But today I let him run around the baseball fields, way out of my sight, climbing trees and climbing the back side of bleachers and in general running wild, without me ever checking in or telling him to GET DOWN or STOP BANGING THAT or whatever. **Side Note #2 – since when did boys climbing trees and running with sticks become this terribly dangerous thing, that no parent can be caught allowing their child to do??** I let him go across the busy parking lot to a playground, navigating among dozens of cars moving in and out as games ended and new ones began. I have started him doing tons of chores, and I also want to get him cutting vegetables with a sharp knife. Even the thought of that makes me sweaty with anxiety! But I find the thought that I could possibly be holding him back and making him helpless so interesting, and it makes me really want to try to recognize when I do that and stop. I’m becoming addicted, actually, to sensing when I am anxious and poised to interfere and then not doing it. I’ve really started second guessing every single “CAREFUL!” and “STOP!” I ever do.
It’s a little more challenging when other parents aren’t on board, and see this as neglectful or lazy. A lady next to me heard me tell Jack he could go climb a tree, and then pointedly told her daughter (same age) that she would not be permitted to run wild, but must sit “like a good girl” on the bleachers and watch the game. She’s nice, she just doesn’t agree with me, and the tough thing I guess is holding firm and not letting her clear disapproval change my decision. Another kid ran off with Jack, and after his mom couldn’t find him, she marched up angrily and said “WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, YOU SIT RIGHT HERE BY ME” and dragged him (he’s 8!) back to the bleachers to sit primly instead of running around the fields, captain of the playground, man of his own destiny.
I just think there’s so much cool stuff kids can do together without parents’ prying eyes, without our social policing (“No Craig, you share! Jack, stop being mean to that kid, you be nice!”) They need to learn social interactions without each of us moms/dads trying to out-polite the other through yelling at our kids. You who are parents will know how it goes – “Jenny, you share” becomes “No John, that’s Jenny’s, she doesn’t have to share with you” and then “No Jenny, you do have to share with John, you have other toys over here” and all that Chip and Dale politeness back and forth. Like, just let the babies get into it and rumble, right? Craig will learn that he’s big enough to physically take any toy he likes from anybody, but also that he doesn’t like playing alone and leaving all of his friends to cry and that maybe being a toddler asshole and taking everybody’s toys away is totally uncool.
It’s also better for me. At a fast food place the other day, the Professor was out of town and the boys were playing, and Liam needed to go to the bathroom. So I sent him off to the bathroom – easy peasy. A lady at the table next to me had kids a similar age, and her 7 year old daughter had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the meal. So the lady packed up all the food, called the little sister from the playground, gathered up all their stuff and purses and bags, and they all trooped to the bathroom together. I absolutely did not say “JUST LET HER GO ALONE,” but I definitely thought how much easier life would be if she’d just let her go alone!
Finding the line between doing this, and being a parent-jerk whose kids are bothering other people, is tough I will admit. Especially when other parents are bothered simply by observing a 7 year old child run with a stick, in their peripheral vision, and don’t see a harried and snappish mother tromping after him hollering. “Where’s the mother??” “Manage your kids!” I hear in my mind, and then my hoverparented kid gets to college and needs me to call his advisor to help him plan his classes for him, and “Stop micromanaging your kids!” becomes the refrain.
It’s fun, though. Stepping back, seeing what they can do. Ceding some of the housework also makes life easier (Jack empties the dishwasher! Liam gets the mail! They get their own breakfasts now!) Tonight, I think Jack cuts some carrots. I’ll let ya’ll know how it goes.
I’ve tried to do this to some extent with the girls. It’s more a function of not saying no to things that I think we would be fine with a boy doing, then the free exploration, but maybe they are one in the same.
I have the girls make their own sandwiches at 3 and 4. I ask them what we need and will grab anything that is too high for them. They open the jars, spread the condiments, put on the meat and cheese. It’s fun to see and it also means I don’t have to do it!
They have also started washing their own dishes. They pull up their chairs and get to it, often asking if they can. It’s a little weird, but we live in such a bubble I try and give them responsibility whenever I can.
And I think leaving the room/making sure they are out of sight, is a great idea to stop those heart attack moments from getting you to stop their exploration. I might try that sometime soon.
Thanks so much for this post. Our tiny boy is still very tiny–7 weeks–but this gave my husband and me much food for thought about how we will try to balance safety and freedom as he becomes more mobile and capable. In the vein of Izzie’s comment about freedom for girls vs. boys, I think it’s quite interesting that the woman in the bleachers told her daughter to “be a good girl” while forbidding her to “run wild”.
Oh Joy, congratulations! Believe me, parental anxiety is a mountain that’s tough to conquer, and I continually climb it, Sisyphus pushing the boulder of fear. Social media makes it worse – there’s just so much more to fear these days!
Howeer, letting go is just so much easier with the third kid. There’s something about the first kid . . . someone once said your first kid is like your first pancake. You are bound to screw it up. Technique really gets better by the third go-round. 😉 My first kid is a delight, though, which also shows that even when you are a newbie parent you can’t do them much harm.
And Izzie, the boy/girl thing is one I think about a lot. A friend had a baby girl and there are already lots of jokes about locking her up and the shotgun vs. the boyfriends and all this, and I’m like – WHOA. The friend, who also has a son, said “it’s just different with a girl.” And I thought – but does it have to be? Is that not mostly cultural? To put it in overly simple and general terms, is not a way to control the sexual behavior of women (starts at birth!) so that future husbands don’t have to worry about being cuckolded? Lots of interesting thoughts in there.