4.26.13 There Is Something About Childhood

If you’re lucky, there is something about childhood, about having a reasonably loving adult, hopefully even a parent or two, happily in your life. If you’re lucky, there may be an absence of continual use of machines and technology in your home , and instead you go off and throw the ball against the back garage wall or the deserted building across the street or play catch with a sibling or neighbor or parent, when school and work are done.

If you’re lucky you get to go for walks and hikes to take care of the growth of your powerful young body’s call to USE itself and grow strong.

Maybe you get to walk or ride a bus or drive a car to places to explore. Especially outdoors expeditions in places with paths and hills and streams and brambly dark tangled woods, because there is no storyline there, only you creating your own, with each step you take.

If you’re lucky, you get to make things out of leftover cardboard boxes, like castles and marble runs and careful hamster explorations and gates for a play that you by yourself or with someone else are inventing just right now...a huge gate you cut and somehow tape together and tape onto old chairs, with no one yelling at you to not tape stuff to the chairs or make such a mess, and there it stands, magnificent...and you take markers or paints and draw vines and maybe a sign on the gate. This imaginary world is becoming something you invite yourself  into, and off you go. Far from the schoolwork you could not understand at all at all, or the mean kid who always tries to trip you when no one is looking, or the parent who seems so crabby and worried and bumps into you and you are the one that says sorry, as they barrel by.  Instead, here you are, off into the story you have planted and watered and weeded and fertilized; off you go into a living breathing invented land.

If kids are lucky, maybe they have a grandparent or parent or parents who survive the bouncing about and the hour of wiggling-struggling-to-fall-asleep, because it’s tough for some kids. Some kids, can manage to fall asleep. They can. And some try hard and simply have a terrible time.

If kids are lucky, they have food that is simple and delicious and nourishing so they grow strong and calm and resilient, and they eat sitting down with someone and no machines and the people look at each other and talk or are comfortably silent, or share their day.

 If they’re lucky, there are trees to climb somewhere near, and their miraculous arms and shoulders and backs become so powerful. Maybe they have a bike of their own or one to borrow and get to ride up and down the sidewalk or the road or the driveway, making pretend all kinds of things. Maybe they get to bring a bike to a rail trail and off they go, on and on, imagining they are crossing the country just with their amazing dependable legs and incredible tireless breath.

Maybe they get to go to a park with swings or they have swings at home, and they pump and pump and look far below and pretend they are so far up in the sky, that they can’t even see the people or roads or houses…and they give themselves a little thrill…. catch their breath, then come around enough to decide it’s the perfect time to take that big swinging leap…off into space, and see if they can land without too much blood loss. This time.

Sometimes kids are lucky and have patient support for dealing with those who are unkind or unwise or unclear . Sometimes kids have support for learning how to articulate what they are thinking or feeling, how to set limits, how to understand what their needs are, and how to get those needs met.  They can soothe their losses, disappointments, fury, and the inevitable experience of harm or inequity. And settle themselves mostly okay, once again. So their deep wise self does not show up with eating and sleeping and behaving problems because it’s the last call for getting someone to sit up and take notice of what is really truly bothering that poor kid.

When I know a young person, whether they were my own kids when younger, kids in my practice or neighborhood, or in my town, I have slowly come to understand something. Despite the fact that my own children are not parents, I am a grandmother. Walking around the world, doing errands, in and out of stores and down paths ,in my neighborhood, I am a grandmother. You see, the world needs grandparents. And the cool thing is, anyone can be a grandparent.

It doesn't mean you get to be all bossy and nosy and go tell others how to live and what to do or not do, right? It does mean you can be kind and thoughtful to others. It means you don’t start up conversations with kids you don’t know, because they need to learn for the most part not to talk to strangers. It does mean if you strike up a conversation with the parent or caretaker, and begin talking, you courteously include them too. It means if you are at dinner and there are 12 adults and 1 kid, you don’t join the others talking over their head, ignoring them, and then chastising them for ‘misbehaving’. Instead, you honor them and engage them in conversation that may interest them. It means if you see a kid of any age with no adults around fall on their bike or get hurt, you stop and ask them if they are okay. All common sense of the old times.

Even older kids and young adults you don’t know need grandparents. When I walk the local streets with younger kids and the older kids are on the corners, swearing, I stop at their side, tug on their sleeve, kindly, and say "You want to make sure to say that stuff only when younger kids aren't around, okay? I mean, you don’t want them hearing it if they’re not used to it, right?”. And then I look into their eyes, another caring stern tug on this bigger-than-me kid's sleeve, this unknown big kid, actually, and give them a smile.

And they stop, surprised, maybe trying to bolster up all their tough stuff, if that’s what’s going on, or their ‘Screw you “ stuff, if they have that one, or maybe their “What are you DOING, older-than-me –crappy-older-woman, catch a load of me, all young and powerful!!!“.

And I look in their eyes with the love of a grandparent, and they get taken aback. You can see it happening, right there. Bam. It’s really the sweetest thing.

I think it’s because they catch that glimpse of what we often grow inside ourselves as we grow older…that immense, peaceful, loving, huge power.

And I see it in their eyes, their quick respectful smile that comes, unbidden to their faces, as they kind of come to, and settle down.  As I smile at them, then head on down the road. Because over time, I have come to realize, I am their grandmother too.