The distinction between child and adult gets a little lost with me
sometimes; but then I spent a large part of my childhood wanting to be an
adult, because it was so obviously better: it meant freedom, if only to a
limited degree, from one's own and others' savage emotions. I blurred the
boundary from the other end, as it were: I thought that it was possible,
desirable, necessary for a child, myself, to be more adult-like than
children were supposed to be. You might be experiencing feelings of intense
pity towards my two-year-old son at this very moment; I should say that I
find him entirely charming in every regard, and have no urgent desire for
him to start practising his casuistry or Vulcan meditation just yet.
Childhood actually seems very *right* for him, at least this childhood,
right now. But I can't say that it suited me at all: a blazing anger, all
the way through, like fighting for air.
Children can't be to blame for their nastiness, but the nastiness is real
nastiness and not some other, simulated kind, as in soap opera or sexual
roleplay. That's part of what I mean about evil overrunning the scope of
moral consciousness, personal responsibility, the predicates of the adult
self who chooses and is accountable for his (sic) choices. Children whose
moral lives are not well-formed can become monsters, and that is a problem
that needs attending to, but it requires confrontation (muscular social
work); in an English state primary-school, the emphasis is too often on
keeping the peace, peace, where there is no peace. If you believe that the
nastiness is real, that the malice is real, that it is not simply a daydream
or one of the rougher edges of a childish game, then you will oppose it
right where it is happening. Adults are so ridiculously blind and stupid
about these things. They seem to think that children potter about all day in
a kind of la-laa land where nothing ever really happens.
Aged about 8 or 9 I stepped in front of a crowd of children who were jeering
and prodding at a fat, retarded boy in my school. The girl who was doing
most of the jeering thought it was silly (and highly impertinent) of me to
be so angry with them - after all, they weren't (at that moment) doing it to
me, were they? The notion that it was repulsive and despicable to try to
reduce fat, retarded children to tears by molesting them hadn't crossed her
mind; she was a normal girl, not a victim of abuse or violence or poverty or
neglect, and that was a crowd of normal children.
Dominic
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