Say What?!

 I remember the day I found out that the rules by which you live can change on you.

It was a Saturday morning when I was about four years old.  As usual, I got up and joined my brother and sister in the living room for cartoons.

From there, it got weird.

With no forewarning, my brother and sister both turned to me and told me that I should be wearing green, or they would pinch me.

I had never heard of such a thing before in my life!

You could be allowed to pinch people?!  For not wearing a certain color?!  It seemed outrageous.  At least, it seemed they should have known that I had not had a chance to get dressed yet, and that I was only four.

However, they insisted.  They did their best to convince my incredulous mind that they knew what they were talking about.

They even went so far as to locate a blue-greenish Kleenex and tuck it into the neck of my jammies for me.
I couldn't wait until Mama got up and set the world straight again.  I waited out cartoons one by one, feeling ridiculous in my Kleenex but grateful I wasn't getting pinched.  I looked forward to the vindication I expected.

However, when Mama did get up, it didn't go quite as well as I expected.

She didn't say that I had to wear green or she would pinch me, but she did sort of duck her chin and say, "Well. . . ."  Which had to mean that my brother and sister were not completely wrong.

I was dismayed.

She may have mildly scolded them for springing this on me, but I think I was helped to find an outfit that included some green. Which meant that I ended up having to conform to this ridiculous new rule.  With Mama's sanction.

What else did I not know about the world that I was supposed to already know?

It's not always easy to be a child.  I see moments of confusion like this in my own children--when they discover (often in a way that embarrasses them) that there was a rule they hadn't known about or that there are things we shouldn't say, or when adults laugh at something they say and they can't see why.

It's part of growing up.

A painful part, I think.

It's amazing, really, how complex are the rules and standards by which we live.  And the layers and conditions and exceptions and intersections that we have to learn, one by one.  We expect everyone to know and live the rules that we cherish and live by.  I see my children struggle to overcome the learning curve.

My youngest child is constantly making up rules--for all of us.  It's his way of coping with this.  He'll announce, "I only have white bread on Tuesdays," or "When I'm six, I'll pick up my books," or some other seemingly random thing that neither he nor we can track.

I can tell that not understanding has made him feel anxious sometimes.  Sometimes his rule-making has exceeded our patience.  He used to count words as he read them, count steps, count everything.  I told him, "We don't have to count everything."  It seemed to relieve him of a great burden.

My heart aches for children who aren't assisted through this process.  Who are told, "Because I said so," or  some other dismissive thing that does not explain anything.

Even if we think our children are too young to understand the rules, we should explain them.  How else will they figure things out with confidence?