Avoided it, until I happened to walk in when they'd pulled it up, caught maybe 30 seconds. One kid, maybe 3, sobbing, his mother (to her credit) stops the 'joke' and gives him back his candy, he rebukes her "that wasn't very kind!" That she kept the video and made it available for this program says something else again. That is when I walked out. Too close to home.
Thinking about RR and her respect for the baby dignity of her granddaughter. A respect I got never from my parents, rarely from others as a kid. This is the hole I am working to repair now. A bag of candy may be trivial, and a minor thing for such strong reactions, but that is the whole of those children's treasure. They worked for it, earned it,it belonged to them. To make a big joke out of taking it away from them, particularly by the very people who are supposed to protect them, is, as the boy rightfully says, unkind.
My father always justified his cruelty to me as training, that the world would be so much worse. Except that it wasn't. The personal, overwhelming, torturous meanness he inflicted on me when small and helpless, remains the worst part of my life. In large part because he was supposed to be my refuge, protector, father, home.
Maybe, though, I am missing something. Some gut reaction, nervous laughter, no real harm done*, that people who live with children's seemingly overdramatizing use to cope. As nurses laughing in the midst of death and horrific injury, a way to deal. Or that kids with solid families, no abuse, having the occasional mean joke played on them, can roll with this. Sounds fishy to me, but I have no point of reference. At least, not one I can rely upon.
Another of my own demons, that I have to deal with. Grab it by it's scrawny throat, and as it bites and writhes and burns, demand it's truth, the lesson, the secret. Swallow it whole, or let it swallow me.
“One evening Milarepa returned to his cave after gathering firewood, only to find it filled with demons. They were cooking his food, reading his books, sleeping in his bed. They had taken over the joint. He knew about nonduality of self and other, but he still didn’t quite know how to get these guys out of his cave. Even though he had the sense that they were just a projection of his own mind—all the unwanted parts of himself—he didn’t know how to get rid of them. So first he taught them the dharma. He sat on this seat that was higher than they were and said things to them about how we are all one. He talked about compassion and shunyata and how poison is medicine. Nothing happened. The demons were still there. Then he lost his patience and got angry and ran at them. They just laughed at him. Finally, he gave up and just sat down on the floor, saying, “I’m not going away and it looks like you’re not either, so let’s just live here together.” At that point, all of them left except one. Milarepa said, “Oh, this one is particularly vicious.” (We all know that one. Sometimes we have lots of them like that. Sometimes we feel that’s all we’ve got.) He didn’t know what to do, so he surrendered himself even further. He walked over and put himself right into the mouth of the demon and said, “Just eat me up if you want to.” Then that demon left too.”-Pema Chödrön
*I have my doubts, obviously. And no, I'm not pointing anyone to it more specifically.
12 comments:
although my childhood was perfectly stable, there is one thing that i remember that bothers me to this day - as a teenager, whenever i was upset about something, my parents would just laugh it off as a hormonal storm. i remember thinking then, and remembering the sting of it now, that even if it was "merely" a hormonal storm, at the moment, it felt very real to me and hurt just as much as if it was a "real" grown-up emotion. i mean, really, is there a difference?
now that i have little ones in my life, i am trying hard to respect them and their feelings regardless of how silly they seem to me from my grown-up vantage point. you are right. it is very important to be kind.
Thank you, Zhoen.
(o)
pc,
To be so dismissed by the people who claim to love us, is deeply wounding.
RR,
This is my thanks for your gift of that story.
I wouldn't be inclined to play that kind of prank on my kids, but occasionally I will give them potential consequences for their behaviour that are ridiculously out of line with respect to the misbehaviour they could show. They understand the ridiculousness but also understand that there will be a more serious consequence if they don't change their tune.
Phil,
That sounds fair, to me. Scale is a difficult concept for children. And as long as it is done with compassion, outrageous threats, because they are unbelievable, express the emotion with a kind of humor.
I felt the same way about that video "David after the Dentist" where a dad films his little boy in a car seat, coming out of the painkillers.
The boy's reactions *are* funny, but they come from real distress, and I quickly turned it off.
I thought it was weird and awful that anyone (even someone who obviously does care for his kid, you could tell he did) would expose his vulnerable child that way.
P.S. I love Pema Chodron---her writings have been super helpful to me, in very real ways.
I especially appreciate teachings along the lines of "just take your demons to tea" like this one.
Fresca,
Yeah, that one didn't bother me nearly so much. Still didn't get what was so amusing about it.
Her books hit me square on, so much healing there.
It's not as disturbing as the candy "prank" to me, maybe because the kids is not set up on purpose.
yep. not ok.
not ok to whore out other people's distress for amusement purposes.
especially not ok to doit to your own kids.
for what? to be on the teevee? really? are we so starved for attention?
flask,
I really have to agree. Maybe slightly different when it's adults being used, but kids… yeah, that's a fail.
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