The Little Paper

Choices – they’re complicated. From the moment your child is born, you’re making them… cloth versus disposable, time-out versus time-in, daycare, nanny, stay at home, breast, bottle, public or private, skiing or hockey. The stakes can seem pretty high and sometimes it’s really hard to know what the right decision is.

If you keep in mind how overwhelming choices can be for adults, you get an inkling of the difficulty children have in navigating the great unknown of unlimited possibilities. A wonderful caregiver I met at the park really helped me out a few years ago when my daughter made a regular morning routine of digging in her heels at the door. “Give her the power to decide for herself from two or three options”, she said, “The blue sneakers or the pink sandals, for example, but always make sure that both options are something you are okay with.” So don’t make sandals a possibility in February.

A simple thing, I know, but the greater wisdom of her advice lay deeper. Her point was not just to be okay with the selections on offer, but also to limit them. I don’t recall having much of a say in things when I was a kid. I went where I was taken, ate what I was given and that was simply that. In this millennium though, I’ve gone a different route, picked my battles, pared down the options and made sure it was “broccoli or peas” and not just “something green” (because that means gummy worms.)

Lately though, Lily and I have been locking horns about summer camp and I found an update to my standard 21st century parenting protocol in a surprising place. In The Mill on The Floss, there is this very poignant passage, “There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known the labour of choice.”

I think I understand what Eliot means. Choice is a labour and there is a beautiful freedom in having decisions made for you. When those decisions are made by your parents, the people who, above all others, know you most intimately and hold your best interests most dear, it is lovelier still.

So I’m giving Lily a day pass from decision-making this year. I’ll pick the camps. And she’ll get mad and hate me for a little while and that’s okay because I really know her and I really love her and, just like I did when my mom made all the plans for me, she’s going to have an amazing summer.

-Vicki-