Parenting Quiz
Which specific offenseswere committed and by whom is lost—mercifully—in the mists of time. Doubtlesssome egregious transgression involving a lunch check or a pitilessmisunderstanding over a meeting time were involved. Suffice it to say that Mrs.Amber Bamberger hasn’t seen or spoken to her daughter, Bambi Bamberger, in 20years. Indeed, Mrs. Amber Bamberger now has a three-year-old grandchild—KaraBamberger—whom she has never met.
In the spiritof the holidays, three generations of Bambergers agree to inhabit the same roomfor the first time in the 21st century. They are ensconced in thecomfy residence of Bambi Bamberger. Mrs. Amber Bamberger (grandma) is on herbest behavior. She has meticulously avoided any commentary on the temperature,quality, or taste of the food prepared and served by her daughter, Bambi. AmberBamberger’s conversation has been immaculately polite if not warm, pleasant iflacking in charm.
The star of theshow of course is Kara—talking up a storm, sharing her stuffed animals with her“new” grandmother, running around like a wind up toy, pausing to listenattentively to her mother and grandmother. The child exudes joy like a furnace.
Until Amber Bamberger explains—pointedly and at length—why Kara Bamberger’s shoes are wrong. Kara Bamberger’s shoes are the wrong size, wrong color, wrong shape. According to her grandmother, Kara Bamberger’s shoes are thoroughly, fundamentally, ferociously wrong. “How can you let this precious child wear such hideous shoes?” she begins. "How will she be able to walk properly?" The conversation deteriorates from there.
Kara Bamberger has no problem with either her shoes or her grandmother’s opinion of same. But Bambi Bamberger goes thermonuclear in response. Emotional landmines thought to have been diffused are activated by remote control. The forgotten outrages, whatever they were, reemerge. "My. Child. Is. Fine," says Bambi Bamberger. The visit is cut short. Amber Bamberger remembers somewhere she needs to be. Bambi Bamberger shows her mother to the door. No plans are made to schedule another visit.
Which brings usto our parenting quiz for the week: why in the world would Amber Bambergerpontificate to her daughter that Kara Bamberger’s shoes were blatantlyimperfect?
- Amber Bamberger is genuinely concernedabout the footwear of her granddaughter and the possible negative consequencesinadequate shoes could have on college applications.
Nah.That can’t be it. The first choice is always wrong and no living human isconcerned about what a three-year-old wears.
- Amber Bamberger wants to be right, showoff her expertise. “In the category of ‘toddler accouterment’ for $200, Alex…”
I’veheard folks begin conversations about obscure topics—“Say, did you know thatthe infinity of prime numbers was first proven by Euclid?”—but abstruseknowledge of shoes is not a thing.
- Amber Bamberger is hostile, competitive,deranged, miserable or some combination.
Nowwe’re getting somewhere. If you haven’t seen your family since before Y2K andyou deliberately engage in meaningless kerfuffling, then mild mental illness isa plausible hypothesis.
- Amber Bamberger is anxious.
Anxietyis my best guess. Amber is anxious about visiting her daughter from whom she isestranged; Amber is nervous about meeting her grandchild for the first time;Amber is worries about the future of her family. Amber doesn’t know how toexpress concern in a healthy way. Amber doesn’t know how to convey affection inany way at all.
There iscertainly enough sadness for decades. And speaking of melancholy that flowsthrough the generations, can we even begin to imagine Amber Bamberger’s familyof origin? Splits and cutoffs—“you are dead to me!”—may have been effectively transmittedby her ancestors. Maybe happiness and joyful family interactions were thoughtto attract bad luck. Perhaps infant mortality was so overwhelmingly prevalentthat affection for a three-year-old was not adaptive. (In Rome, Egypt andTeotihuacan a couple millennia ago, 30% of babies died within a year of birth;a child’s chance of making it through puberty were about 50/50.*)
Today, your baby’s chances of survival are greatly improved. The Central African Republic is the worst country in the world at 9%, Iceland is the best at under 1%. It is no longer necessary to be anxious about a three-year-old wearing the wrong shoes or even eating the incorrect foods. The take away is simple: express love rather than anxiety; keep your worries to yourself; and share a meal with your family more than once every 20 years.
* For more broad numbers and fascinating research, click:
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/06/Mortality-rates-of-children-over-last-two-millennia.png
