[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdC-cehHN6k&w=450&h=330]

This video is banned apparently; don’t ask me why.

Perhaps it was banned because we abhor ugliness. As all sensible people know, nothing brings ugliness home- up close and personal- than a peek in the mirror. We’d rather think ugliness is out there, away from us; external to us. We try hard to deny that the monster we are trying to outrun glares at us out of our mirror everyday. The best solution, we are compelled to conclude, is to break all the mirrors. Then we’d be safe- we KNOW that!

We ban things of this kind. I am certain ostriches must be getting mighty exasperated with us.

I asked myself if children really see and do as sincerely as this video depicts or is it a gross exaggeration? Like a faithful servant, my memory dredged up evidence. You are welcome to decide if the evidence supports this entire children see children do concept or not. Your decision- as they say in unpardonable, pompous legalese, will be final.

I know many children who adopt the same mannerisms- tone of voice, choice of words, facial expression and even handwriting- of their parents. My own children are a resounding proof. My eldest one has had the longest time to observe me and it shows in her demeanor. She talks so much like me that people calling on the phone cant make out which of us they are speaking to. Since she doesn’t often read this blog, I can safely say that she could forge my cheques even if she were standing on her head. Not that it would do her any good, but its the principle of the thing.

Children copy the mental attitudes and fears of the most powerful adult they grow up around. It doesn’t necessarily have be a parent. It could be a teacher or another family member. Children raised in an environment of aggressive intolerance are a lot more likely to adopt those behaviors.

Their attitude about money and success is learned from the adults closest to them. Whether they believe in abundance or suffer from a acute feeling of scantiness, the belief was absorbed from an adult.

Substance abuse doesn’t only happen under peer pressure. Its roots lie in the habits of the adults they have observed. What scares me the most is that their sense of self- worth is also imbibed from their most influential adult’s sense of self- worth. The thought is enough to scare the living daylights out of me!

Social skills or their lack; perseverance and discipline; grit and determination- all of these are absorbed directly from the most influential adult in their lives. In the years of their deepest identity crisis (read teenage), they test these mental constructs they have absorbed by sheer osmosis. Some of them work for them, some do not.

It takes a strong effort of will to throw off the constructs that don’t work because they have already become a part of their psyche. Conditioning as powerful as that is traumatic to get away from. It feels a lot safer to keep wearing a borrowed skin- no matter how the child may chafe under its lacerating folds.

Only a very powerful cataclysmic event would unseat that conditioning as the child gets deeper and deeper into adulthood. More often than not, they live out all their days living out the script they were programmed into when they were too tender to resist the programming.

A few days ago I wrote a post which has a rather nifty story that puts the point across as compellingly as a heavy metal pipe smacking solidly across your windpipe and wrapping itself around your throat snugly as it takes its own sweet time tightening up to choke the breath out of you. I am sure you’re all agog. Go ahead and read it then, what are you waiting for?

Since I am sure you hate me already, there is no harm in rubbing it in some more.

If at all you are trying to hide under a Oh my children don’t pay the least attention to me! bit of fluff, I might as well laugh derisively in your face. Who are you kidding darlin’…? Those kids have got their eyes peeled and they are talking notes faster than you could ever say “Harry Potter”. There is, however, a bit of consolation I can throw your way if you feel as if you were two ticks away from a watery grave.

If your kids have already reached the they don’t pay the least attention to me stage, they’ve already absorbed all you had to offer. They are now in the testing stage. All the damage you could (SHOULD) have protected them from, is done irrevocably.

What was that? Did you just call me sunshine?! Oh, but how sweet! Thank you!

It is my middle name- one of them.

Picture: Mine
Picture: Mine