Enduring Discomfort

I
don’t suppose there is a parent of my acquaintance who doesn’t want their child
to be happy. You want other things, of course, some of them obviously
precursors to happiness, like wanting your child to be safe and equipped to go
out in the world one day and get a job or be productive somehow. My children
know the litany: “What is my job?” “To keep us safe, teach us, and provide for
our basic needs.” But you don’t want a miserable life for your child and so I
suppose you don’t have to be much of a philosopher to start musing on the nature
of happiness.

One of the obvious things
about most of the children of my acquaintance is that they want stuff. They want
candy, they want the new lego toy, they want that attracttive shiny object just
out of reach. Even Søren, at seven months, can express a desire for
something clearly enough that his six year old brother will leap to get it for
him. So I’ve had to explain to said brother that sometimes loving somebody
means not giving them something they want, even if they want it very badly,
because it might not be good for them. The other thing about children’s wants
is that, like all of us, as soon as they have what they want, they start
fixating on the next thing they want. Regardless of your family’s means, you
could pretty much go through a year’s budget in a week trying to get your child
everything he wants, and at the end of the week have a miserable
child.

Is happiness the mere cessation
of desire though?

Sometimes you have to
make your child do things he just doesn’t want to, whether it’s getting a shot,
doing homework, putting away toys, eating a detested food, or going to bed.
Some of these are major and some of these are not, and I suppose this is where a
parenting philosophy is made or broken. Since Xander has always had “I hate
you” and “I don’t love you anymore” met with “That’s ok, I understand this must
be difficult for you, and I will always love you anyway” his new line this week
has been “Mom! You’re DREADFUL!” “Hey, what does dreadful
mean?”

Andt it’s not always clear
you’re doing the right thing. It’s terribly difficult as a parent to watch your
four-year-old cry that he doesn’t want to go to swimming lessons even thought
you’re pretty convinced that being able to swim can make life a lot more joyous
and, more fundamentally, it’s essential to know how to save yourself if you
accidentally fall into the deep end of the pool without your floaties on. But
Xander’s piteous cries tear me up because I want him to enjoy swimming and his
brother learned to swim with eager anticipation every time he was brought
anywhere near a pool, every time the word “pool” was uttered, every time he got
even a little wet in the bath tub. I think I only survived the week of
swimming lessons because Xander was pretty proud of himself at the end of the
day for doing something that was hard for
him.

I’m sitting here typing watching
Søren struggling. It seems like he will teach himself to crawl by
reaching from a sitting up position for a toy that is just out of reach, pushing
himself forward, on his hands and knees. When he’s lying on his belly he can
sort of scoot a little, but it looks less like crawling. The whole thing,
though, is a terrible struggle and looks painful. He bumps himself and I’ve
divided his cries into categories of “He can endure just a little more of this”
and “Put down your coffee cup and run”. I suppose that what I want for him and
his brothers, a lot like what I want for myself, is for him to get many of the
things he wants, but to be able to be happy when he doesn’t. I want him to
struggle a little, and to know that when the struggle gets to be enough I will
swoop in and pick him up and cuddle him and delight in him.

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