Tuesday, November 01, 2005
The Hero
Max and Reed often resemble lion cubs at play, jostling, tugging and rolling on top of each other until one gets hurt or tires of the game, or until the watchful lioness breaks up the commotion. Being big and coordinated, Reed is now a competent adversary, so who will get the better of whom is no longer a foregone conclusion. Max's tactics tend to be rougher, though, and any given race or chase may culminate in a shove to the younger brother's back while he is in mid-stride. A couple of weeks ago Reed's forehead had the imprint of a concrete sidewalk to prove it. I might be more concerned about the quality of their play were it not for the fact that they are so clearly enjoying themselves, right up until the moment of pain.
Relationships are like prisms, beautiful and mysterious and complex, and I glimpsed another facet of theirs this evening.
I had taken the boys to a park to meet our playgroup for dinner and a good romp. Playgrounds are fascinating social laboratories in that they allow children to explore, among other things, their own power--both physical and psychological--and its limits. Want to swing across the monkey bars, but can't gain enough momentum to reach the next one? Want to ride someone else's bike when she's unwilling to share? Want to join a game of soccer with older kids who consider you a nuisance? On the playground, children experience accomplishment and failure, inclusion and rejection, dominance and passivity, long before their intellects can grasp those concepts.
The great playground experiment becomes more interesting with children as different as Max and Reed. For Max the Intrepid, the park provides an endless supply of new playmates and adventures. Reed the Timid has recently begun to articulate a litany of fears: firetrucks, trains, barking dogs, the dark, our housekeeper, his room, monsters, thunder, and the men hammering on the house across the street. For him, the park is a daunting landscape of the unfamiliar. Half an hour elapsed before Reed summoned the inner resources to relinquish his grip on my knee and interact with other kids. (Was it merely a coincidence that it was my friend's one-year old twins who coaxed him out of his shell? Perhaps even small children can tell when a relationship is non-threatening.)
His legs finally beneath him, Reed began to explore. I watched from a distance as he scaled the playground equipment and headed for the circular slide. As he was crossing the platform, he was confronted by three boys, all Max's age. They sized him up, surrounded him and began to taunt him. I couldn't hear their words, but by tone of voice alone, their intent to intimidate him was unmistakable. Reed's face buckled. Tucking chin to chest, he began to cry.
I started to intervene, but Max beat me to it. He scrambled up the ladder and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother. "Stop saying that!," Max ordered. "He's smaller than you, and that's not kind!" The other boys dispersed. No hitting, no shoving. Just one little man, in a display of 4-year old courage, defending his fearful brother.
In Reed's eyes, was Max a hero this evening? I can't say for sure, but I know that he was in mine.
Relationships are like prisms, beautiful and mysterious and complex, and I glimpsed another facet of theirs this evening.
I had taken the boys to a park to meet our playgroup for dinner and a good romp. Playgrounds are fascinating social laboratories in that they allow children to explore, among other things, their own power--both physical and psychological--and its limits. Want to swing across the monkey bars, but can't gain enough momentum to reach the next one? Want to ride someone else's bike when she's unwilling to share? Want to join a game of soccer with older kids who consider you a nuisance? On the playground, children experience accomplishment and failure, inclusion and rejection, dominance and passivity, long before their intellects can grasp those concepts.
The great playground experiment becomes more interesting with children as different as Max and Reed. For Max the Intrepid, the park provides an endless supply of new playmates and adventures. Reed the Timid has recently begun to articulate a litany of fears: firetrucks, trains, barking dogs, the dark, our housekeeper, his room, monsters, thunder, and the men hammering on the house across the street. For him, the park is a daunting landscape of the unfamiliar. Half an hour elapsed before Reed summoned the inner resources to relinquish his grip on my knee and interact with other kids. (Was it merely a coincidence that it was my friend's one-year old twins who coaxed him out of his shell? Perhaps even small children can tell when a relationship is non-threatening.)
His legs finally beneath him, Reed began to explore. I watched from a distance as he scaled the playground equipment and headed for the circular slide. As he was crossing the platform, he was confronted by three boys, all Max's age. They sized him up, surrounded him and began to taunt him. I couldn't hear their words, but by tone of voice alone, their intent to intimidate him was unmistakable. Reed's face buckled. Tucking chin to chest, he began to cry.
I started to intervene, but Max beat me to it. He scrambled up the ladder and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother. "Stop saying that!," Max ordered. "He's smaller than you, and that's not kind!" The other boys dispersed. No hitting, no shoving. Just one little man, in a display of 4-year old courage, defending his fearful brother.
In Reed's eyes, was Max a hero this evening? I can't say for sure, but I know that he was in mine.
1 Comments:
Well, I don't know if that moment made you tear up, but reading about it certainly made me cry.
Max is my hero today, too.
Post a Comment
<< Home