Insanity is Hereditary: or The Trials of Feeling Too Much

My son Will is at an age (eight years old a couple of weeks ago) where he's really, really driving his mother and me crazy.

Of course the more intelligent and headstrong a child is, the more efficiently he's able to get under a parent's skin, and Will has both those qualities in spades. His verbal skills are astounding, and I'm not just saying that as a proud parent. We taught him baby sign language early on, and so even when he was pre-verbal he was able to communicate his desires to us quite clearly. The signs for "more," "eat," and "drink" he quickly grasped, leading to sometimes maddening, sometimes hilarious arguments between two college-educated adults and a one-year-old. ("More." "No, honey, you've had enough Smarties from Mimi's purse." "More Eat." "We know you like them, but you need to drink your milk now." "More Eat...PLEASE." "..." "Well, maybe just a couple more...") Yes, we got regularly out-argued by a pre-verbal toddler--though in our defense, the cuteness factor was difficult to combat.

(My mom--"Mimi"--loves to tell about the first time she saw Will sign something where his intent was inarguably clear: we were sitting around visiting at my folks' house, and I was relaxing on the couch with a beer bottle in my hand. We'd been showing Will sign-language words for quite a while, and though he sometimes imitated us, it was never really definite whether he was trying to "talk" or just mimicking us. So Will, who was not yet walking confidently, as I remember, pulled himself up to a standing position on the couch right beside me, turned his big blue high-beams on me, and very carefully pointed to my beer and then made a lifting motion toward his mouth--"Drink." I was stunned--it was really his first definite sign, and I wanted to praise and clap and reward him for doing it..but obviously I couldn't give him a swig of the brew. Mom says the look on my face was priceless, and she guffawed and applauded for me. We ended up giving him apple juice, I think. After that, it was ON.)

Another great sign-language moment: we were at a Christmas party at my coworker's house, and Will was cruising around in their game room while we played pool. He was very interested in a kitty scratching post they had with a spring and a brightly-colored pompom on the top as a cat toy. When we noticed his fascination, I went over and crouched down beside him. "Hey, buddy," I said, "What are you looking at?" Without missing a beat, he waved his fingers under his nose, the sign for "Flower." My coworker was absolutely amazed--proof of what we'd already learned--that pre-verbal tots do, in fact, understand WAY more than they can communicate. Except, of course, that Will could.

My point is, even before he learned to speak, Will was a born communicator and, more than that, a debater. Once words entered his realm of expertise, his debating skills improved exponentially by the week. And since we never really baby-talked him, his vocabulary was also impressive for a child his age. So much so that at times it was difficult to remember that we were arguing with a toddler, and not with a much older child--a difficulty that continues to be a problem as he gets older.

So Will is very skilled verbally; add to that his innate willfulness (truly he is aptly named), and my parenting journey sometimes seems one debate after another--about why he should get more candy, why he needs more computer time, why Sesame Street shouldn't count against his TV time since it's educational, et cetera et cetera. And because he's so precise in his language, I have to be very clear in what I say to him. ("Dad, you said you thought I'd had enough whipped cream. You didn't say I definitely had to stop.")

(For some more of this type of stuff, check out this essay I wrote on my nameplate blog, which details how he cornered me into teaching him about cannibalism before I was quite ready to do so.)

He's also very talented and imaginative. He's musically talented: he got a toy set of drums for Christmas last year (Thanks a lot, Santa), and wore them out over the course of the next few months. (He's taking lessons now, improving every day, and for his birthday he got an actual full drum kit. So far we've only had one complaint from the neighbors.) He's spatially talented--his skill putting together Lego sets is matched only by his insatiable desire to do so, and he's always coming down with some new Bionicle or other that he's cobbled together from different pieces he had--many with multiple legs and weapons, in configurations I'm not sure the Lego folks even imagined--and all with their own back stories. He's written a few interesting short stories, at least one great image poem, and is also good at math and science and sports.

It's enough to make a fellow jealous.

Anyway, lately--because he's so smart and articulate--it seems he and I have been arguing nearly constantly. I'm either denying him a new Lego set because it's too expensive, demanding he put down the building toys and do his homework, forcing him away from the computer so I can check my e-mail, telling him he doesn't need caffeine before he goes to bed--sometimes I feel like I do nothing but bicker at him from the time I come home till he's in bed (after arguments about why he should be allowed to stay up, naturally). Tears, shouts, stomping off to his room, declarations of my inherent meanness--it wears me down, because I think back to those times when all we did was swing on the playground, throw rocks into the creek, and wrestle in the living room floor until something got broken. I wonder where that little guy went, and who this greedy, obsessive, contrarian grade-schooler is who took his place.

But even more lately--today, in fact--I think I realized why he tests me so, and why even the smallest denial gets met with such fierce combativeness. Of course part of it is that he's EIGHT. I get that. But another part is simply this: he can't turn it down.

What I mean is, he just FEELS things so much. There's no middle ground. When it's joy--a new Bionicle, or a trip to the skating rink, or a friend coming over to spend the night--you'd think he'd won the lottery, skipping and jumping and laughing and whistling like the world is the best party ever, and it's in his honor. And when it's bad--when the toy breaks, or he can't get something exactly the way he envisions it, or his dreams of Mountain Dew and marshmallows are shattered by a parental denial--it's like you ripped his heart out, and there is no bottom to his frustration or despair.

Probably this is common to all kids--I can only speak for my own, and Will is my first to reach this stage--but it can be unsettling, especially when your kid acts a lot older than he actually is. I keep thinking, "Why can't he just calm down and try to build that thing again?" Or "What's the big deal about me insisting that he clean up his toys before we have a story?" Or "Why am I suddenly Dracula just because I snuck (sneaked?) a Tootsie Roll out of his treat box?" Forgetting, of course, that these are questions only an adult would ask. To a kid, you might as well be querying in Portuguese. (Note: does not apply to Brazilian or Portuguese children.)

And there's something wonderful in the depth of his feeling. When he shows love, it's just the most beaming, beatific, purest distillation of emotion possible; it shines off his face like light, so strong you can feel its heat. When he laughs, there's no sarcasm, no ulterior purposes, nothing underneath that's not full of joy and happiness. And yes, when he cries, or shouts, or becomes afraid, there are no walls around him to fend off those negative feelings. It all comes rushing in like a wave, and then rushes back out from him toward you. It's devastating.

So that's my job--to be the wall, to be the protection against the bad stuff, but still to let the good stuff shine out. Thick, but transparent, like that Plexiglas at the shark tank that lets you walk underneath the man-eaters. (Which Will, by the way, just LOVES.)

It seems to me I used to feel things more strongly too--not just when I was a kid, but just a few years ago. I was more open, I let things in, I let them out. But I feel that in recent years I've been closing things off more, concentrating on not feeling. After all, you let things in, you set yourself up to be hurt, right? Disappointments can't affect you if you don't hope.

I don't know. Maybe a necessary part of adulthood is putting up protective layers around yourself, but lately I've been thinking they don't need to be quite so thick, or nearly so opaque. Nothing's safer than a lead-lined box buried in the foundation, but who wants to live in a space like that?

Anyway, Will's going to learn control. I'm going to keep telling him not to drink sodas before bed, forcing him to clean his room, not allowing him to drop $100 of birthday money on the Lego Mars Mission Alien Breeding Station or whatever. And he'll keep yelling, and crying, and arguing for all he's worth. For a while anyway. But he'll also keep whistling, keep drumming, keep laughing, keep hugging, and keep shining too. At least for a few more years.

In the mean time, I need someone to build me a better wall. Something with looser hinges and sliding panels that you can open up quick enough to see something wonderful before it passes out of sight. Something not quite as thick, made of stuff that's a little bit clearer, a little less speckled with dust--something that stays clean and transparent to let the sunlight in. Something maybe not quite so protective, but a lot easier to live in.

Luckily, I just happen to know a very talented builder.