Recently, I watched a three-year-old boy trail his mother and father slowly through a
\ncrowded airport. He was screaming violently at five-second intervals\u2014and, more
\nimportant, he was doing it voluntarily. He wasn\u2019t at the end of this tether. As a parent, I
\ncould tell from the tone. He was irritating his parents and hundreds of other people to
\ngain attention. Maybe he needed something. But that was no way to get it, and his
\nparents should have let him know that. You might object that \u201cperhaps they were worn
\nout, and jet-lagged, after a long trip.\u201d But thirty seconds of carefully directed problemsolving would have brought the shameful episode to a halt. More thoughtful parents
\nwould not have let someone they truly cared for become the object of a crowd\u2019s contempt.<\/p>\n
I saw a four-year old boy
\nallowed to go hungry on a regular basis. His nanny had been injured, and he was being
\ncycled through the neighbours for temporary care. When his mother dropped him off at
\nour house, she indicated that he wouldn\u2019t eat at all, all day. \u201cThat\u2019s OK,\u201d she said. It
\nwasn\u2019t OK (in case that\u2019s not obvious). This was the same four-year-old boy who clung to
\nmy wife for hours in absolute desperation and total commitment, when she tenaciously,
\npersistently and mercifully managed to feed him an entire lunch-time meal, rewarding
\nhim throughout for his cooperation, and refusing to let him fail. He started out with a
\nclosed mouth, sitting with all of us at the dining room table, my wife and I, our two kids,
\nand two neighbourhood kids we looked after during the day. She put the spoon in front of
\nhim, waiting patiently, persistently, while he moved his head back and forth, refusing it
\nentry, using defensive methods typical of a recalcitrant and none-too-well-attended twoyear old<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t let him fail. She patted him on the head every time he managed a mouthful,
\ntelling him sincerely that he was a \u201cgood boy\u201d when he did so. She did think he was a
\ngood boy. He was a cute, damaged kid. Ten not-too-painful minutes later he finished his
\nmeal. We were all watching intently. It was a drama of life and death.
\n\u201cLook,\u201d she said, holding up his bowl. \u201cYou finished all of it.\u201d This boy, who was
\nstanding in the corner, voluntarily and unhappily, when I first saw him; who wouldn\u2019t
\ninteract with the other kids, who frowned chronically, who wouldn\u2019t respond to me when
\nI tickled and prodded him, trying to get him to play\u2014this boy broke immediately into a
\nwide, radiant smile. It brought joy to everyone at the table. Twenty years later, writing it
\ndown today, it still brings me to tears. Afterward, he followed my wife around like a
\npuppy for the rest of the day, refusing to let her out of his sight. When she sat down, he
\njumped in her lap, cuddling in, opening himself back up to the world, searching
\ndesperately for the love he had been continually denied. Later in the day, but far too soon,
\nhis mother reappeared. She came down the stairs into the room we all occupied. \u201cOh,
\nSuperMom,\u201d she uttered, resentfully, seeing her son curled up in my wife\u2019s lap. Then she
\ndeparted, black, murderous heart unchanged, doomed child in hand. She was a
\npsychologist. The things you can see, with even a single open eye. It\u2019s no wonder that
\npeople want to stay blind<\/p>\n
Some localize all such problems in the adult, whether in the parent or broader society.
\n\u201cThere are no bad children,\u201d such people think, \u201conly bad parents.\u201d When the idealized
\nimage of an unsullied child is brought to mind, this notion appears fully justified. The
\nbeauty, openness, joy, trust and capacity for love characterizing children makes it easy to
\nattribute full culpability to the adults on the scene. But such an attitude is dangerously
\nand naively romantic. It\u2019s too one-sided, in the case of parents granted a particularly
\ndifficult son or daughter. It\u2019s also not for the best that all human corruption is uncritically
\nlaid at society\u2019s feet. That conclusion merely displaces the problem, back in time. It
\nexplains nothing, and solves no problems. If society is corrupt, but not the individuals
\nwithin it, then where did the corruption originate?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Part b’ follows<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n