A Saturday morning bleat. Forgive me, I am feeling sensitive.
We’ve recently had to decide on an approach to tackling what we consider to be inappropriate behaviour towards baby Jenklett. It’s been hard to figure out how to do this because we know that most people don’t parent in the way we do, and very conventional people are often disapproving of some of our practices (like letting her take risks).
We don’t expect the people responsible to change their values or perspectives, but if they want to spend time with us, we do expect them to fully respect our choice to parent in a libertarian manner and treat the Jenklett as an individual, capable of holding her own opinions and making decisions. We have been described as unreasonable and dictatorial for insisting on this, criticism that I have struggled with. Whilst we have in the past chosen to ignore similar behaviour directed at us, we have chosen not compromise when our child’s autonomy is threatened.
The problem I have is that on the surface of it this seems like a blatant contradiction – we the parents will not compromise when our child’s autonomy is threatened. It sounds so authoritarian. We both know that she has definite opinions and the desire to make decisions, and she communicates these things very clearly through gestures, body language, facial expression and now speech.
But other people don’t see that. Their default position is that babies are pleasant, but pretty stupid, weak and helpless. They are incapable of knowing what’s good for them. Conventional opinion is that they exist for the express purpose of providing other people with pleasure. The continual passing of a baby from person to person at gatherings is testament to this. Anyone can kiss and cuddle a baby; it’s what they are there for, isn’t it?
From the day she arrived, the Jenklett has tended to communicate serious dissatisfaction when passed to anyone else. Most social situations were incredibly stressful for all three of us. Jenklett would immediately tense and strain away from whoever was holding her, turning her head frantically to see where we had gone. When she started to cry it would be shrill, intense and piercing. In spite of this, people would insist on holding onto her, like a possession, for their own gratification. They either could not or would not choose to listen to what she had to say. We had less confidence then and we put other people’s feelings before those of our child.
Now, she will shake her head vigorously, say “no” and walk away, but people still ignore this and persist in trying to touch and pester her against her will. “Oh, she’s only a baby, all babies like attention,” they say. Or, “It’s just the way we are and we can’t change that.”
What kind of message does this send to a child about power relationships between children and adults? What is she learning about respect for physical and emotional boundaries? It's no surprise that when people treat children in this way they become obsessed with the risk of child abuse and insist on legislating to protect every aspect of a child's life from possible harm.
When the Jenklett's autonomy is threatened, we are certain that we must step in to stop it. Even if she had been more passive and less vocal in her protestations, we would still have reservations about this process of objectification that is passed off as genuine affection.
However, in trying to explain this, we have been branded unreasonable and dictatorial, the very qualities we are so desperate to avoid. The proof that this assertion must be true is that no-one else behaves like us… so we must be wrong. Are we?
