Golden Time

I've taken a bit of flak from people about the things I have posted here on my blog in regards to my son, vis a vis his mental faculties.  Whenever I joke about my concerns about Arthur's slower development rate when compared to his sister (especially regarding reading,) people warn me that one day he will read these things and his feelings will be hurt.

I say that hurt feelings are a small price to pay to get to the day when he actually can read my comments.

Look, I know he has to develop at his own speed, and he has shown progress of late.  But I'm just impatient.  I joke about being afraid that he is just a dim kid, but the only reason I'm comfortable making such jokes is that I know he isn't.  If you spend time with Arthur, you will quickly see that he is quite sharp, and his mental acuity has never been called into question.

My son is no dummy, and grasps concepts quickly.  When he really wants to learn something, he picks it up easily, but he's stubborn (pretty sure he gets that from his mother.)  He fights us tooth and nail when we try to teach him to read, and resists all our attempts to help him.  He's fine with letters, and has an ever-expanding collection of sight words, but he doesn't want to put in the effort to sound things out, and prefers to have people just tell him what the words are because he's lazy (again, has to be from his mom.)

And it's frustrating.  I so badly want to share the joy and wonder of reading with him, and I know he will love being able to read for himself.  He's got this big old brain that is constantly working, but whenever we sit down to do reading practice, he sits there with a goofy grin and intentionally fools around and get things wrong to get a reaction (definitely from his mom.)

Of course all of this is normal.  As someone who grew up hearing parents and teachers go on about blah blah potential, blah blah blah effort, blah blah blah wasting opportunities, blah blah blah no future, I truly get that you have to give kids their own time to do what they are going to do.

I know this.

Buuuuut...

I want it now.  I want him to live up to what he can do now.  I don't want to wait, I want time to move according to my schedule.

But being a parent is largely defined by being subject to the whims of time.  When you have children, time is always moving at the wrong speed for what is going on.  Everyone talks about how fast time goes by, saying 'if you blink, you'll miss it!'  And sure, when you look back, time can fly away from you in  rush of hazy memories, but while you are actually experiencing it, time can absolutely crawl.

Anyone who has ever had to potty-train a child understands this phenomenon.  What seems like such a natural, obvious process; "don't shit there, shit here!" and should be a brief transition period of a few weeks of work, drags on and on for what feels like an ice age.  And then come the inevitable relapses that bring on a sense of futility (in addition to extra laundry.)  If you want to experience eternity, try potty training for a week and then loop that experience.

It's like that with tons of skills that kids have to learn.  You know they are smart enough to get it, but their little brains sometimes need far more instruction and repetition than it seems should be necessary.  And you can't rush them, you just have to be patient and move at their speed.  But boy, will you wish you could fast forward through a lot of those times.

Even after they pick up how to do something, many kids will do their very best to make time dilate into infinity by performing tasks with all the headlong rush of a glacier climbing a staircase.

After an epoch of teaching our daughter how to tie shoes, she is now a total pro.  And if she's putting on her shoes to go play outside she's like a freaking Nascar pit crew.  But what's that?  Mommy and Daddy are running late and we need to get out the door quickly?  Cue up the oboes and bassoon on the soundtrack, because suddenly tying her shoes has become like a session low-impact tai chi in an osteoporosis ward, and her fingers can't move through the kata slowly and methodically enough.

98% of my son's actions throughout the waking day involve running with the speed and intensity of focus of a cheetah who's just seen a gazelle trip.  But once he determines that his parents have any actual destination and timetable, he goes from hare to tortoise fast enough to need anti-lock brakes.  Suddenly every rock, leaf or cloud is endlessly fascinating, and demands careful scrutiny that would do Natty Bumpo proud.

At dinner, when I set down his plate, he gulps his food down like the Sarlacc, so that I barely have a moment to take a bite of my own dinner before he's demanding seconds.  But mornings?  When we have to get going?  Well now each food must be chewed thoroughly according to the National Institute of Health guidelines.  Suddenly he must pick through his food as if he's looking for Wonka's golden ticket.  And I have never seen a boy who feels the need to put a cup of apple juice up to his lips and FAKE THAT HE IS DRINKING!  I swear, it's like he's a teamster on golden time or something.

It seems that children universally lack any respect for the concept of finite time, and do everything as if they have all the time in the world.  That is because for them, it basically is.  For a four year old, time doesn't even register as scarce commodity.  Their origin is a hazy mist of impressions and their future is an ever-changing whirlpool of possibility.

And that's all well and good for kids, but parents have things to do, places to go, and deadlines to meet.  We have responsibilities and schedules and stress, and we just don't have the time for lollygagging, woolgathering, or any other such tomfoolery (today's word selection is brought to you by Old Crankypants Brand liniment tonic, now available in wintergreen!)

Parents need to get kids ready for school, get to work, pick up kids from school, get them fed, bathed, homeworked and pajama-ed so that they can get them to sleep early enough to do all the other crap they need to do.  And if kids insist on moving at a snail's pace, this throws a monkey wrench into the orderly works of the daily grind.

Children don't realize how valuable time is, and so they need to learn to move, work, eat, and develop skills faster.

But then again, while time is a one-way street, it is also a double-edged sword.

It may take an eternity of long slow hours in the bathroom for a child to use the potty seat, but eternity gets a lot faster once they learn to drive.  And you may find yourself regretting all those times you admonished your child to hurry up and eat once they are bolting down their dinner to hurry out the door  to hang out with their friends.  And that wearisome tugging on your child's hand in order to get them to keep up with you as you walk becomes a much heavier pulling on your heart when watching their back recede in the distance as they take off down the road to their own destiny, leaving you clutching nothing but hope and memories.

And for some parents...

Some parents must bear the burden of wanting every one of those wasted seconds back.  Must sit helplessly by a hospital bed begging for more time, hoping for one more day for the treatment to take hold, one more hour together to say all that needs to be said, one more minute for them to open their eyes just to say goodbye.

For some parents, there is no such thing as wasted time.

So you know what Arthur?  You take your own time learning to read.  I'll wait as long as you need.
You take all the time in the world, buddy.