Competing with Children

[amul]

Strange how some part of me was tense until I saw Mirage's children again. Last trip, they were here practically every other day, and the long days without their presence underfoot made the whole of last week very surreal.

I'd brought some of my games with me this time, carefully vetting my collection for age appropriateness. I picked out a game called Jungle Speed, a pattern matching game made for French kindergarteners.

It's a game that I really liked when I first bought it, and spent days playing it with all my adult friends. Then it got tucked away and I haven't played it for years. I thought I remembered it fairly well and had come up with several "game tricks" that I thought I would be suave enough to pull off on a 7 and 4 yr old, in case they got more frustrated with losing to me than I thought I could deal with.

I felt a little bit worried about that choice as I packed the game among my luggage, feeling like it was somehow amoral to be playing such tricks on kids, that I ought to be showing a better example, but worrying they would be unfairly handicapped by age.

I needn't have bothered. The kids and their mother completely kicked my scrawny heart-shaped behind every round. Clever Tool Using Monkey kept the game fairly lively by deciding at various points that his goal was to "win" all the cards, instead of trying to empty his deck first. Peaches was just plain ol' More Perceptive than I was.


I just woke up from taking a nap with CTUM, who insisted I read to him and cuddle him to sleep. I lay in the dark, the warm heat of this boy pressed up against me, feeling my "human furnace" kick into high gear at the very touch of him, my body biologically responding to his closeness. I couldn't bring myself to close my eyes at first. I kept scanning the room in a sort of sleepy meditative state and realized on some level that I was subconsciously keeping an eye out for predators. CTUM buried himself deeper into me, and I felt my body temperature rise even further.

It is, quite frankly, freaking me out more than a little. There are things my body would do for these children without bothering to consult my brain. The need to provide for them, to keep them safe quite literally burns inside me and it scares my surface brain while soothing my animal instincts with inappropriate reassurances and the strangest thing is that I recognize the tune to which my heart beats with fear as it feels what my body is capable of.

I am not worried
I've done this sort of thing before
But then I start to think about the consequences
And I don't get no sleep in a quiet room and...

This time when kindness falls like rain
It washes me away and
Anna begins to change my mind
And every time she sneezes I believe it's love and
Oh Lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing

And underneath that, a few phrase from a poem I once heard about what Beethovan's father would say whenever he tried his hardest.

Comments

[gailmom.livejournal.com]

~smile~

Kids change the whole feel of a house...and I've never understood how some people can spend time with them and not end up changed on some level...

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of Shane Koyczan. That's a hell of a poem. That's amazing.

And yeah, kids do some amazing things to your body. Raising a kid has done some things to me I haven't expected, completely separate from most of what you mention. It sounds like it would affect you at least as thoroughly. May yet, in fact, from the sound of it.

[amul.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in hearing you expound on those statements.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Well, for instance, had you heard of the cute experiments they did where they showed women pictures of men's faces, and asked them to rate the guys on whether they'd be good to have kids with, and whether they would be fun to hook up with? The "have kids with" faces correlated very strongly with guys who had stated they wanted kids, and the "hook up with" faces correlated strongly with the guys' testosterone levels. So apparently just a photo of your face can communicate that.

There's a similar "dad look" and "dad manner" that I can see myself getting. It's hard to describe, but my face and voice are slightly different than they were pre-fatherhood. And I recognize them in other men now too, after I've seen what the differences look like on me. As with testosterone level, there are probably things I'm doing that affect that (in testosterone's case: sex, hard exercise).

Some of the "dad manner" is the mix of patience and sharpness I've got, as well as more awareness of, for instance, random sounds. I'm "on alert" more, a bit like what you're talking about. I think I'm much more confident that Shanna won't be harmed while in our house, but I expect she'll get into trouble more often :-) That's not quite the same as paranoia because I *expect*, even *want* her, to do some of that -- it's very much in her long-term best interests not to be too obedient, to me or anybody else. However, I need to balance that with listening for likely property damage. I'm told parents often don't have this attitude with girls, but if you imagine I'm talking about a boy, you can see how common the attitude is.

In addition to watching Shanna very carefully, which I expected, I'm watching most other people I interact with more carefully, essentially to assess their good and bad characteristics, and consider how I want to treat Shanna in light of those results. Some people have obviously been affected strongly by their upbringing, and I do a lot of silently asking "do I want to do that? What would I do to encourage or discourage that in my children?" That's not my previous attitude to interactions with most people.

I'll think on other things. There are certainly other changes I've noticed, which doesn't mean I'm remembering them right this moment :-)