On Tuesday night, much of Ann and Ron’s family was gathered at Ben and Tara’s home. Ben was attending to things in one end of the house, and Ron was following ten month old Kate as she walked (on her own wheels) from Tara in the kitchen toward the den, where Ann and Bailey were together on the sofa. Bailey was relaxing with her head in her mom’s lap, as Ann stroked her hair. When Kate saw this, it was if you could see her make the connections in her mind. Now Kate and Bailey are close, because Bailey has been her baby-sitter. Still, Kate started fussing and poking at Bailey as if to say, “This is my granna; what are you doing here?” Ann thought it was funny, so kept stroking Bailey’s head and saying, “My baby.” Which is a truth, but not a welcome fact to a baby who thinks that she is the entire family’s baby. Kate kept indicating her displeasure in Kate language (it sounds something like very forceful Chinese) and patting Ann and Bailey until finally, she became distracted with Bailey’s big, beautiful eyes and started to play with her eyelashes. We all laughed and moved on to the rest of our evening.
Later on, the scene was replayed with Ann and Bailey in a recliner. This time when Kate saw them together, she insisted that Ann bring her up into the recliner, too. When Ann would scratch Bailey’s back and say, “My Baby,” Kate would watch intently. Then Kate would wrap her little arm around Ann’s neck, bury her face in Ann’s shoulder, and nuzzle. The actors repeated this scene several times, and as with any comedy, it was funnier every time they did it. Talk was not enough. Kate was going to demonstrate who was whose baby. We taught Kate something. And Kate taught us that you can change your community with love, instead of noise or nonsense.
This is all about community, isn’t it? People, all connected in some way (in this case by familial relationships) gathered in one place, sharing time, relationship, and resources. Those relationships have definition and boundaries. The newest member of the community, Kate, has yet to understand those relationships and boundaries. She is a baby, after all. She is innocent. That doesn’t mean that everything she does is good, but she is too young to understand and be accountable for her actions. At ten months, how could she understand? So the community tolerates, even finds amusing, behavior which would not be acceptable from an older person. There were no negative consequences for Kate because she displayed some possessive feelings and actions. Instead her little community used one of its teaching tools (humor), maintained existing relationships, and worked to demonstrate that it has enough love for all of its members, whether they are present in the room or not.
You might think that this is intuitively obvious, but follow me on. As a little one grows older and grows in their ability to understand right and wrong, what does the community do with behavior that is out of bounds? Do we begin to withdraw our protective hand so that the natural consequences of the action negatively reinforce the lesson without our intervention? This might be possible and appropriate. Yet there still will remain certain actions that are more difficult to connect to consequence. Sometimes this is because we natively seek to protect children from consequences (of course we will grab the child right before they step off the edge of the deck). Sometimes this is because the effects of an action are more gradual and subtle.
What seems to be important to me is that, within community, we place limits on the kinds of consequences related to maintaining the community itself. In normal situations, consequences would focus on a limitation of resources, not of relationship. We wouldn’t say it like this, but it would be something like, “I need take away this toy for a while so that you understand you can’t do this, but I still love you.” Resources are removed; relationships are not terminated. Even if the behavior is so corrosive to community that a person has to be removed from the community for a while (a young person being violent to someone in the family, for example), it is important for the child to understand that the intent is to change the behavior and not terminate the relationship.
How does this relate to the children in our care? Think through that. Perhaps their community never taught them how to live in community. Perhaps they have experienced trauma that has warped their view of community. How do we help them understand right relationships? How do we help them to understand and respect appropriate boundaries? How do we help them understand what it means to be a part of a community unless we make them full-fledged members of a loving, flexible, and resilient community?
Hear the words of Jesus:
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God [isn’t this the community of which we wish to be a part?] belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Mark 10:13-16 – NRSV
What do we do with this truth? Hear the words of Paul:
Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:8-9 – NRSV
Grace and peace,
Ron
