Isn't There A Doctrine About This?

I don't object, in principle, to childless people giving me parenting advice.

One doesn't have to have children to have experience in what good or bad parenting does to children--every adult was once a child himself and is, at least in theory, able to reflect rationally on his childhood experiences and the results of his parents' or caregivers' choices.

And maybe I just have an unusually kind, thoughtful, wise, and good crop of friends, but most of my single or childless friends who reflect on family matters do a pretty darn good job of it.  (It probably doesn't hurt that they're unusually smart, and know enough to pander to a mother's ego by complimenting her children frequently and in great detail.  Spoonful of sugar, medicine, etc.)

So when the young, obviously childfree cashier at the Earth Fare started telling me yesterday about what all children Amos's age were like, and about how I should be feeling about kids that age, and about what he'd be like in a few years, I wasn't predisposed to be offended, simply because she didn't have children of her own.

But all I could think was, "Oh my gosh, lady, you would not say such things if you had any actual 24/7/365 experience with an actual two-year-old."

She said, "Oh, I love seeing kids that age in here!  They are so innocent!  They're just so pure in heart!"

And she had the nerve to look disturbed when I stared at her, wordlessly aghast.  I really couldn't form words to save my life.  (I blame Max, by the way.  It's hard to come up with snappy rejoinders when all the sleep you're getting comes in two-hour chunks.)

She started what sounded like a well-rehearsed speech about cherishing these years and enjoying their innocence and purity because "it gets destroyed all too soon in this world!"

I couldn't stop the snorting that escaped my throat.

And she started looking more and more disturbed by the second, though she didn't trouble herself to press pause and ask why I so obviously disagreed with her pronouncements.

I tried to come up with a story that would show her exactly how "innocent" Amos was.

I tried to come up with the words to describe how he sneaks out of the house at least once a week and tries to start the car.  Before we're awake.  Despite our trying to hide the keys.  And has been for at least a year now.

I tried to think of how to explain how he taunts his older brother when he is sitting in time out--sitting just out of reach, stretching his toes toward Theo until Theo starts crying "Stop TOUCHING me!!!!" and then jerking his legs back so that he can say, "I not touching Theo!  He talking in time out!!"

I tried to call up coherent sentences with which to relate the time he tried to take away Max's baby blanket, four times, while I sat in the rocking chair in the room.  How he tried to come up with convincing arguments. ("But it's mine!" "It's not cold today, Mommy." "He wants another blanket, not my blanket.")  And how in the end he just left the room and waited for me to go to the bathroom, and then darted silently into the room, stole the blanket, and had it completely hidden in his own room before I got back from the bathroom.

But, again, sleep in two-hour chunks.  Words simply would not come.

After a good twenty seconds of incoherent gutteral noises, I finally looked down at Amos and stuttered out, "Are you innocent, Amos?"

He looked at her, looked at me, and looked back at her and said, "No, I not.  I'm Amos."

And he was exactly right.