...I discovered I was more irked by the behaviour of adults around them than by the kids themselves. The constant coaxing, the silly voices, the inability to engage them, or on the other side the anger, the shouting, the tyrannical disposition than only incites rebelliousness. Kids are fine: but they make adults into idiots.
Oh, I agree. I try to check the urge to be judgemental, because raising children is extremely difficult to put it mildly, but I see far too many parents who seem to view their children not as individual beings but as extensions of the parent's will. They feed them, dress them, boss them around, and get irked when they fail to trail along behind like tethered balloons, but they don't seem to talk with the children, ask them questions, listen to them or engage in any sort of productive two-way exchange. They don't seem to comprehend the child as a person. I've often heard talk about the selfishness of childhood, but, in my area at least, it's often the parents who come across as self-centred. They don't seem to appreciate that they're in a long-term relationship with another being, that just because it's by necessity an unequal partnership that doesn't strip the child of its individuality. To be honest, I don't really understand how they fail to find their children's developing minds engaging, but I just don't see any real investment.
I guess I encounter too many parents who think raising a child means providing them with food, clothing, a roof over their head and a list of "don'ts", and nothing more. Again, I try to resist the urge to judge, particularly based on such limited exposure that I'm getting in each case, but, still, it's hard and it does concern me.
And I particularly dislike the silly voices, yes. Why people feel the need to alter their voice around younger children, I don't know. Imitating a supposed child-like manner, I suppose, which doesn't make sense to me. Young children already know how to be infants; they're looking to you to demonstrate how to be adults. You're not supposed to be descending to their level, but providing something they can learn from and aspire to.
But...all that said...one of the reasons I find interacting with other people's children a bit difficult (at least since I hit adulthood; I had no such self-conscious insecurities as an older teenager) is precisely
because treating children like brainless aliens seems to be the acceptable practice around here. Interacting with a child the way you would an adult, without (excuse the expression) using kiddie-gloves can get you some strange or ugly looks. As an adult, I've become a bit wary.
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These two were cooperative with my vision.
