Thursday, July 17, 2008

William the Bad

A long night of unsupervised activity culminated in William, four years old, standing with his arm cocked to toss the plastic spoon in his hand into the whirling blades of a floor box fan. Standing only a short distance away, I saw the entire scene develop, but was intrigued into inactivity by a moment’s hesitation, his hesitation. For a few seconds he was just standing there. Was he weighing his motivation against the possibility of punishment, I thought? And if so, let me grant him his reflective moment. But as we know, it only lasted a few seconds, just long enough to leave me out of position, like the effects of a well-executed stutter step. The noise was the worst part. The spoon broke immediately, disposable anyway, and was ejected through the back, and the blades continued to cool the room in their endless cycle, apparently unperturbed. But perception is always more influential than fact and that is not how William’s act was perceived—as simply a broken spoon and a loud noise. The crowd of adults that were busying themselves cleaning the room all stared in brief surprise. His mother stared at him threateningly, and as he retreated from her gaze she marched him into a corner. The fear in his eyes seemed punishment enough, at least for now, and perhaps understanding this, his mother simply sat him on a chair and forbid him to move. Everyone ignored his crying.

“William is soooooooo bad!” the conversation began a few hours later. “Did you see him throw the spoon into the fan?”

“Yes I did,” some said. “No, but I heard it,” said others.

“What do you mean ‘bad’?” I asked

“Just that. He is BAD!” one shot back in an authoritative air laced with the ardor of communicating truth.

Others laughed, and offered support. “Did you see him shaking salt into the lemonade?”

More laughter. “I saw him completely whack his sister with those Styrofoam noodles.”

More laughter. “I saw him stuffing cashews into the noodle,” offered another.

“Into the green one right?” asked another.

“Yeah!”

“And he was stomping food into the carpet.” More laughter.

“He is sooooo bad!”

Again I retorted, “What do you mean ‘bad’?”

“What you don’t agree? How would you describe his behavior?”

“I think William needs much closer supervision.”

“Yes, BAD!” one shot back. More laughter.

“Is that what you mean? He requires effort? Then your son is ‘bad’ too,” I added, addressing the only parents in the room with regard to their utterly adorable 10-month old.

“Well, no, all children require effort,” someone responded.

“Then say what you mean. I feel as though saying he’s ‘bad’ doesn’t communicate anything useful. I’m not saying William’s behavior wasn’t problematic but I feel like you all are so busy being adults, you can’t understand William.” I contemplated listing the connotations of ‘bad’ and showing their imprecision—inferior, unpleasant, unfortunate, decayed, injured, ashamed, disobedient, morally offensive, worthless. Even the most relevant to a child’s behavior, ‘disobedient,’ lacks precision, for who was William disobeying by throwing the spoon? Even if he was instructed to ‘be good,’ what does ‘good’ behavior look like, smiling and still? In William’s case, what is the difference between curiosity and mischief, or being strong-willed and stubborn? Is it a matter of scale of perspective?

“Ok, tell me this,” another asked. “Of all the children at the dinner, if you had to take one home to babysit for the night, wouldn’t you choose any of the others over William?”

“Not necessarily.”

“I feel like your response is not really because of the imprecision of the word ‘bad.’ Were you called ‘bad’ as a child?”

In the telling silence that followed, I blinked furiously, trying to wipe away with my eyelids the images that the insightful question had resurrected. I was called ‘bad’ as a child. I was stubborn, mischievous, short-tempered, confrontational, and probably many other things that made me a burdensome charge. It wasn’t, however, the word itself that so strongly affected me. It was the attitude towards me that those who believed it adopted. But in that moment, that wasn’t the argument I wanted to make; I read it as a weak appeal to their sympathy. An appeal that if mishandled could have been hurtful.

Someone was approaching me with a hug, but on my corneas between blinks burned the frustration of vulnerability and I stopped the approach at arms length.

“I don’t need a hug!” I said angrily. “Don’t insult me with a simplistic reduction of my argument to the bias of my point of view.”

That ended the conversation. Nothing more was said of William the Bad.

Later, the-subject-of-my-deepest-affection told me that had I invoked my experience, my case would have been stronger. Rather than hearing the final question as a challenge to my claim to objective truth, I could have heard it as an appeal to the irreducibly specific, subjectively true nature of perspective.