Relative Sadness
Recently a couple friends have related stories about their kids being sad. One friend's son was wailing when he was supposed to be in bed ("I! Want! Waaaaaaatteeeeeeeer!"), and another friend's son was distraught about a broken fish eraser. ("I want to see him whole again and I just can't!") I felt a little guilty, hearing those stories, because while I have similar stories I would like to share, I can't without it seeming like I'm bragging, or possibly belittling my friends' stories. Because when Sandi cries at night, she wails, "I want my moooommmmmyyyyyy!" and she gets distraught about her broken family. ("None of my family lives together and they're all broken up and it's not *fair*!")
But to the children in question, the emotions are the same level of intensity. And as a parent, you use similar techniques to deal with them. My friend with the eraser-deprived child writes, "Oh, my son, such is the way of the world. There is nothing to do for it but weep and cling to each other." She writes this knowing that we, the adult readers, will be amused at the incongruity between the inconsequentiality of her son's sadness and the depth of the response, but what she also knows is that this lesson is indeed the lesson her son needs to learn. And I took comfort in her story, and found wisdom in her response because it's the same lesson Sandi must learn. And if an adult would be as distraught in her situation but only slightly annoyed at a broken eraser, it's merely happenstance and fate that separate my girl's sadness triggers from those of my friend's son.
Now, lest you think a cloud of tragedy hangs heavily over our newly-expanded household, I will tell you that it's never such weighty issues that *start* the crying. Tonight it was the fact that she chose to not eat much of the dinner we gave her, and later we wouldn't give her a snack. It's only after the tears have crested that the "I want my mooommmyyy!" starts. And I suspect that at least in part, she may have learned that she gets more sympathy crying about her mother than she does crying about snacks. And so, I try to separate the cause from the effect and dwell instead on the aftermath. It's reasonable for someone her age to be sad about not having snacks, and it's reasonable to be sad about being separated from your mother. How, now, do we deal with our sadness? I told her of times I was sad, and I told her the fish eraser story. None of us need weep alone.
But to the children in question, the emotions are the same level of intensity. And as a parent, you use similar techniques to deal with them. My friend with the eraser-deprived child writes, "Oh, my son, such is the way of the world. There is nothing to do for it but weep and cling to each other." She writes this knowing that we, the adult readers, will be amused at the incongruity between the inconsequentiality of her son's sadness and the depth of the response, but what she also knows is that this lesson is indeed the lesson her son needs to learn. And I took comfort in her story, and found wisdom in her response because it's the same lesson Sandi must learn. And if an adult would be as distraught in her situation but only slightly annoyed at a broken eraser, it's merely happenstance and fate that separate my girl's sadness triggers from those of my friend's son.
Now, lest you think a cloud of tragedy hangs heavily over our newly-expanded household, I will tell you that it's never such weighty issues that *start* the crying. Tonight it was the fact that she chose to not eat much of the dinner we gave her, and later we wouldn't give her a snack. It's only after the tears have crested that the "I want my mooommmyyy!" starts. And I suspect that at least in part, she may have learned that she gets more sympathy crying about her mother than she does crying about snacks. And so, I try to separate the cause from the effect and dwell instead on the aftermath. It's reasonable for someone her age to be sad about not having snacks, and it's reasonable to be sad about being separated from your mother. How, now, do we deal with our sadness? I told her of times I was sad, and I told her the fish eraser story. None of us need weep alone.