It is becoming increasingly clear that I am no longer the sole influence on my eldest son. Whilst I know this is inevitable, not to mention right and proper, I harbour a wish for all my children to grow up to be kind, tolerant and open-minded and therefore I preach, and of course always practice, those tenets in the hope that they will grow up thus. Except actually I cannot be kind or tolerant or open-minded when my children throw their peel-me-off-the-floor-I-dare-you tantrums, nor when ALL FOUR BOYS (EVEN THE BABY) piss all over the floor when peeing, nor before my first coffee in the morning, nor when… wait, I digress.
This evening this little gem uttered forth from his four year old, otherwise angelic mouth at suppertime:
William, the inquisitive younger brother, a propos of nothing: Are the men in the yellow shoes big men, Mummy?
Me, puzzled: I’m not sure who you mean, what men in yellow shoes?
William, referring to a toy lego airport set: The airport men, Mummy, accompanied by a sigh, KEEP UP MOTHER.
To which Harry replies tutting: Oh Bubby, they’re not the big men. Important men, they wear dark shoes. The men in yellow shoes, well, they’re just the workers.
My egalitarian, classless teachings blown apart in one fell swoop by, I presume, some little all-knowing darling in the pre-school playground. Is four too young to launch into an explanation of the problems of capitalism and the oppression of the underclasses? Or if I ignore it – because I am too bloody tired to challenge the prevailing world view, particularly as I will be answered simply with “Why?” over and over – am I just reinforcing his views?
But more worryingly, what next? A critique of feminism at breakfast?
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Mwahahaha. It’s so difficult to stay one step ahead of this stuff. Not to mention, it’s also impossible to make sense some days. My husband launched into a complicated explanation of gravity when my son wanted to know why his car rolled down a hill. He asked again, and I told him “the car wanted to go down the hill, honey.” He accepted that with no problems.
Maybe rather than smashing world views, you can find a “simple” explanation. Like, you can’t judge a man by his shoes. Heh.
I like the idea of the simple explanation. I imagine this will work particularly well to questions I don’t know the answers to (I’m looking forward to those…).
Wondering why your husband’s car was rolling down a hill…
I like the simple explanation as well.
And, as for the “whys,” I find “because I’m your mommy and I say so” to be quite effective when I’m too tired to explain sometihng properly.
Oh, they start young, don’t they. When my daughter comes out with something like that, I preach a little about how all jobs are important because the planes couldn’t fly safely without the people on the runway directing them or repairing them or whatever. But in my heart I wonder how long till she figures out which jobs make money and take education (and are respected), and which ones don’t.
Or which jobs take education but don’t make money — when she was 5 she announced one evening that she was going to be a poem writer when she grew up. But that to make money she would go around to schools teaching children art. How does a 5 year old know that poets don’t make much money? And what makes her think art teachers can support themselves? The mysteries of the world are endless. At least she thinks teaching is valuable.
“Because I say so” is well-used in our house too. So much so that I hear Eldest Son saying “I’m not going to bed/getting dressed/going to school. Because I SAY SO.”
Madeleine – that’s the sort of explanation I give. But then I also say ‘work hard in school, do your best and you’ll do well in life’ to which Harry often replies ‘yes, I’m going to be very successful. I’m going to make LOTS of money’. Money = success = respect, even at his age. He’s getting these subliminal messages from everything he sees and hears. [But then he also says he reaaally wants to be a train driver on Thomas the Tank Engine, so perhaps I'm reading way too much into his comments.]
Found you. Like the new look. Will change my blogroll.
Jen
Thank you. Flattered by ‘like the new look’ – ‘your new look is interesting’ might have been more accurate so thanks for being kind about my dubious programming skills.
I would leave the discussions of class oppression etc. to a later age. Don’t you have enough to deal with just to get through the day without resorting to Valium? I know I do and I only have two!!
Not valium (yet) but a large glass of wine at the end of each day certainly wouldn’t go amiss.