Before I begin today's lesson, I would like to clarify some things that have been said about me. I am not a parent. I have two cats, who, except for their constant ingestion-excretion-of-food loop, their unreasonably high expectations, and their universally high you-tube ratings, in no way resemble children. Additionally, I've never really "spoken with" a child before. They usually shy away from my loose-fitting clothes and intransigent smile. I eat sauerkraut and pickled eggs and other vinegar-based foodstuffs that tend to repel children before I have a chance to study them.
However, if I happen to be in a public space with nothing to do, which is often the case these days, I'm often compelled to follow (at a considerate, even respectable, distance of course) single parents with their child. I am drawn to the power struggle between the two – the giver of life vs the one who demands his asshole gets cleaned regularly by said giver. Fascinating to anyone with an interest in psychology and/or ogling people to pass the time.
From these sessions of unofficial accompaniment, I've decided to impart some important lessons. Firstly, parents must understand that a major part of being a kid is experimentation. Children have virtually no experience, nor any grasp of the subtleties of social interactions. At a visit to an art gallery, I once saw a child holding her mother's hand. Clutched in the other hand was her stuffed bunny doll, a raggedy gray thing with strangely angular ears and frayed stitching around the eyes. The kind of doll most other children refuse to socialize with. The child was upset by something, and the mother bent down to ask her what was wrong. From my vantage (ducked behind a water fountain), I saw the strangest thing: without saying a word, the little girl held up the doll in front of her mother's face.
What could we make of this? I couldn't understand it at first, but then I realized: the doll was a surrogate, the manifestation of the child's current state of mind. What the girl couldn't express with her own words or face, the bunny could. It was a bold statement, telling your own mother you felt inanimate and decayed or possibly hungry for lettuce.
The mother, faced with her child's choice of expression, responded by dragging her listless daughter by the leg through the rest of the exhibit. They seemed to be having a lovely time.
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