Hobson's Choice
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am god
I've figured out one of the perks of parenting a toddler. For a brief moment, I get to be God. I figured this out today when Eleanor was asking me about her new foam letters and numbers for the tub. She'd hold one up and say "What this?" And I would say, "That is number four" or letter q or whatever, and then she would say her signature "Woooowwwww!"
I am her go-to God for figuring out the universe. I think that I have three purposes in her mind (1) comfort and love, (2) "boobie" which is all wrapped in number one, and (3) and knowledge. If she wants to know what something is, she has no doubt that I can tell her about it. I can give her a name for everything in her world. I'm God.
Now, like the Big God, I am not omnipotent. I cannot, for example, prevent my child from sharing playground equipment most ungraciously as she did today. She has free will. On the other hand, I can after a brief "teachable moment" remove her from the situation. Come to think of it, this is the kind of Big God I could definitely get into. I would like a God who, anytime I was starting to be an jerk, could just yank my ass out of there. Think how different my life would be today.
All this has led me to thoughts of teenagers: do teenagers really think their parents are stupid? Or is it really a big let down for the parents that they are not longer Supreme Knowlege Providers. I mean, this is the life right now: Eleanor is thrilled that I can tell her "That is the number four," "these are dandelions," "this is ice cream." This is the kind of knowledge where I've got a really firm grasp; this knowledge does not fail me through sleep deprivation.
But someday, she's going to come to me with calculus homework; okay, let's be honest, geometry homework. And I'm going to have to say "I'm sorry, honey, algebra is really as far as I go. I can do your basic statistics, which is essentially counting. Geometry, no." I will no longer be God.
And God forbid the day when she learns one of my wacky antiscientific ideas that I carry around and which Chris gradually disabuses (for example, until my marriage, I thought that microwave ovens used radioactive energy and that the human bladder was a like a gas tank).
Mid-bath, I had this fantasy that Chris and I could agree to divvy up human knowledge and become omniscient. In the best possible scenario, Chris would have to bear a lot more of the burden (since he understands math). In worse scenarios, we have to try to figure out how to limit Eleanor's awareness of the universe to the 1930s and 1940s in America (Chris's dissertation), medieval lyrics (my undergrad), and Star Trek: the Next Generation.
I better enjoy this God-thing now.
8:46 p.m. - 2004-04-09
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
Other diaries: > |
