Stepping into my shoes
Monday, February 28, 2005 at 08:12AM This blog, as anyone who regularly reads it knows, contains several of my musings on fatherhood after 40. When I write these anecdotes about The Toddler, I try, as best I can, to step into his boys' size 6 shoes. The problem is that a men's size 9 foot does not fit into a boys' size 6 shoe.
There are literally tons of books claiming to know what's best for our kids. But these so-called experts can't possibly know what's really going on in the mind of a toddler. And if you don't know what's going on in those little heads, how can you really know what's best for them?
Now we even have reality-based TV shows like Supernanny and Nanny 911 where desperate parents can go to tame their wild beasts. Jo Frost (aka Supernanny) even has a book out now in which she dispenses more of her child-rearing advice, for those, like The Toddler's Mommy, who just can't get enough of her on TV.
But are these reality nanny shows real? Almost certainly not. Anyone who claims to have all the answers almost certainly doesn't. And any story arc that always ends up happily is almost certainly Hollywood fiction. The show that I'd like to see is the one that goes back six months later and sees what these families look like after the Supernanny rides off in her little car into the sunset.
I'm not saying that there aren't lessons that can be learned from parenting how-to books or even from TV nannies; I'm just saying that life isn't as simple as they make it out to be.
The reality is that kids aren't that simple. So much is going on in those little heads, things that we as adults have no ability to grasp. We learn from them as they learn from us. It's not a one-way street. And it shouldn't be. It's not like we have all the answers.
No, the truth is, parents have few answers. And perhaps that's for the best. Because we don't want them just filling our shoes. We want them to grow into their own.
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