An Essay A Day For A Year
By Roe
Day 43, February 12, 2012
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I love how full of themselves little kids are. Me, me, me, me, and now, now, now, now. I grew up in the era of mucho regulation, back when airlines and trucking companies and phone companies and little kids were heavily regulated. Now, today, most of the commerce and culture of the country has been deregulated, and we have the beneficial mess of a free market society and economy (or at least we hope and pretend). But how funny that we haven’t begun to deregulate our children yet. Children could definitely benefit from a free market childhood, and like the businesses, regulate themselves. We adults, and the world, could definitely benefit from some me, me, me, and now, now, now, until we figure out how to share and moderate ourselves rather than falsely from regulation. Learning the hard way is the best kind of learning.
When I deregulated my 4 children, all hell broke loose, and the shit hit the fan. Funny enough, hell and shit landed all over my children. Hee hee for that. I figured out that self regulation came as a result of self indulgence and then self “the shit landed all over me” realizations. I eventually sort of self regulated myself at the age of 48, and that was just the other day. I regulated trying to outrun the cops in my race car in my teens when the cops outran their own self regulation and beat up my face. I began to regulate my drinking in my 20’s on the second or 10th time (I forgot which) I got so sick I begged for death. I regulated fighting out of pride and tantrums when I couldn’t find the emergency ward with all the blood in my eyes. I regulated buying things in my 30’s when I ran out of money, and I regulated when to pay my rent when I slept in my car in winter for the first time. I am not proud to be stupid, but I am stupid nonetheless. When I had kids I wondered if maybe I hovered over and under and around every inch of their lives like I saw parents do if I could save them from stupid. No, I was sure that when someone else regulates you, you produce stupid, so I let them master stupid themselves from the get go.
I decided that stupid now in small painful degrees was much better than big stupids later, and only they could decide when and how stupid. So I decided to do my best to keep them from death or permanent injury, and I decided to let them mess up the best they could and learn for themselves. I got heavily criticized when my two year old wanted to climb a ladder up to the roof where I was working. I never said “no!, that is dangerous”, or even “be careful!”. I climbed down and stood under her as she ascended without saying anything, and I carefully watched for the death or paraplegic height to save her should she fall. I definitely am not a bad parent. Long before the death height, on the fourth step she slipped, got her leg caught in between the rungs, let go, fell over backwards, and tumbled down to the ground (4’) like a sack of potatoes. Her head went thud on various parts of the ladder and ground, and she looked up in rage and fear and pain at the ladder and roof as if she had been attacked. She cried and came to me for solace, and uttered several toddler superlatives at the ladder and roof. But she never asked me or blamed me or expected me to do anything but support her in her need for freedom, and then solace at her own failure. Toddler girl climbing ladder and fall down go boom lesson 303: accomplished. Toddler alive: check. Natural new fear of new tall difficult things: check. Innocent Papa now getting to be kind: triple check.
I have many, many more of these stories, from discovering “hot”, to going too “fast”, or being too “bold”, up to and including operating machinery and indulging in the fermented fruits and substances of the world as young adults. The ladder is my favorite story though, I wondered if she had any brains in that brave little body of hers since her head sounded like a hollow coconut when it hit the dirt. My kids learned very fast that they were masters of the universe, and they accepted and paid the price as masters, and now own themselves. Yes, they are all still alive. No, none of them are in wheelchairs, and funny enough, they are all so conservative and careful that they have never seen the inside of a doctor’s office or emergency room. Fall down and go boom really hurts, it is scary, and you get no reward for rebellion or craziness from me. I might even laugh at the sound of your hollow coconut head when it goes thud in the dirt, as long as I’m reasonably sure that you’re still alive. Now that is parenting.
With food I simply never bought anything that was not healthy. Go ahead and abuse the celery hot stuff. Then I would suddenly come home with bags of toxic and yummy, disgusting junk food and a case of coke, and semi regularly. I watched them gorge in all manner of nausea inducing foods in copious quantities, and they would stay up all night partying. It was hilarious to see their faces at 4, half asleep and whining, sick and reaching to me for hugs and help. “How about some more Nacho Doritos and Coke at 4 am after 6 movies there tough guy?” I’m not sure if the truth was that I wanted to eat Doritos and drink Coke and watch movies all night because I was a 4 year old still, or because I loved laughing at 4 year olds as I hugged them. But I am sure that my kids do a great job of regulating their own food and drinks and sleep today.
And so it has been with alternative Roe parenting, supported of course by my very crazy and devoted wife who can laugh at and hug foolish and funny kids just as good at me. The same freedom and self regulation ideas went for language also in our house, and I have been told to fuck off by 3’ and 4’ people more than any man alive. Now when I hear those words from my young adults it is to remind me that I as their dad have a foul mouth and need to curb my immaturity. That is funny. The same with sexuality, and absolute honesty and transparency about sex at appropriate times. We have the amazing fortune to have late teen and early 20 something virgins living at home, all craving contact, but managing their own precious sexual selves carefully, and mindful of the stories of Mom and Dad’s unfortunate and regretful coming of age.
We all want freedom. We all want to make our own mistakes. We all learn from our mistakes. Mom and Dad, please be on my side. Please approve of me and my need to explore and play with and challenge my world. Please let me fail and learn my way. Please prevent me from dying or disease if you can, and I’ll do the rest. That is me, me, me for now, now, now. Later I’ll get to being smarter and get to you, you when I’m tired of standing in front of my own fan. Fuck yeah. (I never got to say that so I’m still working on self regulating).
See you tomorrow.
yourpersonalmuse@gmx.com
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