The Burden of Polite Conversation
Because the practical demands of parenting often dwarf the bigger picture, it can be useful to keep a parenting journal that ties practice to goal, stimulating an awareness of how your parenting style and behavior impact your child's long-term development. As you record your own personal responses to the questions raised in this article and others, you'll eventually find that you've written your own book on parenting.
Question:
What is your child's role in public interaction? What conversational rules have you taught your child and what expectations do you have regarding how these are employed?
Context:
Of the many anxious moments in life that I experience, here's one of the everyday strain that preoccupies me. I'm on the elevator with my two-year old daughter. A charming older lady in the corner is eyeing my child with obvious delight and seems about ready to speak. "How sweet," she'll sigh, appealing to the part of me that is dying to make sure that Solveig will grow up confident and with a sense of being well- loved.
Then she'll lean down into Solveig's face and, rather loudly, say, "What's your name?"
Okay, now I know very well that Solveig is not going to answer this lady. At home she is quite possibly the most garrulous, voluble child that has ever walked this earth. But in the elevator, both she and I know she's going to keep her mouth shut.
A few seconds pass and the lady is still staring at my daughter, waiting for an answer. Solveig is starting to look a little weirded-out and suddenly I feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility for how this conversation is going to turn out. Am I supposed to field this one?
It's a small moment in time, but one of those defining moments that Solveig and I do share on occasion. I realize, with this staggering sense of motherhood, that my own decision to respond or not will have an impact on the rest of her life.
Now I've studied social interaction well enough to know that, in polite society, there's really no good way for this woman to back out of her question. It was already hanging above our heads in this six by three foot box and she and I and Solveig could still feel the echo in the air. It was, after all, a normal, everyday polite kind of question. And, it was one that she could reasonably expect an answer to. We couldn't exactly pretend it hadn't been asked.
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