In touch with childhood

May 1988. Three-year-old granddaughter is staring at our cat that has run up to the patio door with a beautiful black and gold bird in her mouth. “Why can’t birdie fly, grandma? Why did Kitty do that? Why can’t the doctor make the birdie fly again?” Her questions intrigue me as I grope for answers that she would understand. I answer her the best I can and then remember how important it is to honestly, but gently, teach her some of the realities of life — and death — so we have a burial ceremony. “When will you take him out, grandma?”

A week later: “Is birdie still there? Where did he go? Why did kitty do that? Why does the wolf want to eat the pigs? Why doesn’t the queen like Snow White? Why were Cinderella’s sisters mean to her? Why do the Three Stooges always hit each other?” Tears come to my eyes as I try to explain to her that some people are not good people, but most people are nice even though some are so unhappy that they hurt others. “Why aren’t they happy?”

Like all children, she would have to learn the harsh facts of life — about how she will have to protect herself and be suspicious sometimes and that there are some people who are so inhumane that with no hint of conscience, they will destroy others. It will be difficult for her to understand that such people somehow missed out on learning empathy and compassion — traits she exhibited already.

No more sweet, precious innocence. We cannot protect her from all that will damage her belief in the goodness of all things. Her parents and I must face reality and do our best to guide her into becoming competent, confident and optimistic — strong enough to hold her own and enjoy a fulfilling life in a crazy, impersonal, harsh and violent world. So we delight together, we play and laugh and we joyfully investigate and create and make cookies.

I tell her stories she likes over and over again — especially the ones about her mother when she was little. And we talk about feelings, about “why” and about how the baby is going to get out of mommy’s tummy (Ask Mommy). She is going to be a big sister, and as she hugs her dolly and delights in her brand-new cousin, she says she can’t wait. And I know I will be telling her the story about the little girl who had a baby brother and who felt unhappy sometimes because Mommy had to spend so much time caring for him — but Mommy still loved her first baby just as much — over and over again.

May 1991. Now she’s 6 and I’m helping her spell a word she wants to write and trying to answer her still compelling questions while I try to help little brother with his first attempt with a puzzle. I frequently marvel at their innate thrust for doing and learning and their wonderful uninhibited openness. I remind myself how lucky I am to be an important person in these two young lives. And I sigh!

How careful we must be to see that the spirit of spontaneity, wonder, curiosity, delight, self-confidence and trust are not crushed. How sensitive we need to be to the delicate blossoming of all young lives so they can flower into whole human beings that add some kind of beauty to this world.

Now it’s 2020 and oldest granddaughter and her husband will soon celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary with their two delightful daughters.

If all who are blessed with the responsibility of a child’s growth and development would just remember what Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote many years ago. “Hold childhood in reverence and do not be in a hurry to judge it for good or ill. Give nature time to work before taking over tasks lest you interfere with her method. ... Nature wants children to be children before they are men.” (And women) “If we deliberately part from this order we shall get premature fruits which are neither ripe nor well-flavored and which soon decay. We shall have youthful sages and grown-up children. Childhood has ways of seeing, thinking, and feeling peculiar to itself; nothing can be more foolish than to substitute our ways for them.”

Since 1984, Dorothy Dimitre has written more than 1,000 columns for various local newspapers. Her email address is gramsd@aceweb.com.