As a three-year-old, my older daughter could climb on the sofa cushions, and stomp around wearing a skirt on her head. She would do that by herself at home, or she got away with doing
It’s barely been twelve months but it’s much harder for her now to get away with the kind of things that would earlier have been considered ‘cute’. It’s mostly us, her parents, who expect her to be better behaved and more considerate. And we cringe at the thought of her being judged for child-like behaviour, and by extension, us too.
Yet, there are clear signs that she’s growing up. Most of those are in the form of my exclusion from parts of her life. I used to be able to take her to the bathroom and help her get dressed when she was done, but now, the toilet is out of bounds while she uses it. I’m also repeatedly told how I do not have the required skill set to comb her hair or for that, and some days I can’t choose her clothes because after all, ‘I’m not a girl’.
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And then suddenly, I’m her play buddy when we squeeze into the tent in her bedroom where I play anyone ranging from a made up My Little Pony character to Obi-Wan Kenobi to Bilbo Baggins. She plays Twilight, Leia Organa or the Elf queen Galadriel.
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Growing up is not a linear business I suppose. Certain days, the lucidity of her questions and the intelligence of her commentary on life belies her maturity. As her father, it’s easy to confuse the two. At four years of age, her vocabulary is aided by her mother’s reading to her of books like ‘The Hobbit’ and sometimes, even ‘Hamlet’. Her comprehension of the words she uses also shows she understands their context.
And then on other days, she’ll throw tantrums at the drop of a teddy bear. We’ll have guests over for dinner and she then decides to outdo her baby sister in the lack of table manners. It makes both her mother and I wonder If we’re doing something wrong in raising our children.
Yet, in the same token, she’ll talk about kids in her class and how she advises them using the philosophy of the Jedi or Princess Celestia. And how she’ll argue with me about how she doesn’t actually need as much dinner as I’ve served her because of all the ‘snacking’ she’s done through the day.
It’s hard to tell which version of my daughter I’ll get sometimes – the one who will parent me or the one that needs to be handled with ‘kid gloves’. I know I’m not the first parent who has had to face this dual life of their child and I’m not the last.
I work in an industry where predicting the behaviour of people is just as crucial as getting the job done. I guess I can then consider this net practice for the real world. And I’ll have my daughters to thank.
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from Kids Stop Press
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