They Don't Know What They Want

Daily Dad July 22

Control is both an illusion and a physical reality. An Illusion in the sense that you cannot weigh it or measure it with a ruler, but a physical reality in that its effects can be clearly seen. The oppressed person is physically different from the unoppressed. The weight of exerted control on someone shapes everything from their posture to the construction of their bodies.

When Ryan Holiday talks about determining the level by which you exert control over your child in The Daily Dad, he describes the downfalls of over-control. Yet the results of under-control are so much darker and inherently understood that there is little need to describe them (without control the child will not survive). The tendency, as such, is to overreach and become a tyrant. The balancing act is between tyranny and chaos. The truth is that control is needed, and through control guidance.

Examining the relationship between myself and my infant son makes this clear. He’ll reach his hand into a fire, or onto a stove, or into a sharp opening of a can. He doesn’t know why he shouldn’t roll when his diaper is being changed, or what he wants when he cries. As a parent, it makes sense to strap him down so that he cannot roll while the diaper is off, to put him in front of a screen so he stops crying, and to make sure he never comes in contact with anything sharp or hot. And all those things we try to do when things come to a head; to control his environment and develop a place where he is safe and secure and comfortable. But regardless he will find a way to hit his head on the hardwood, roll onto a cat’s tail, and poke the back of his mouth with his hands until he pukes.

Letting him have the freedom to be a silly baby is his God-given right. But by the same token, it is the duty of the parent to determine the bounds by which that freedom is actualized.