Innocence Lost

A bus trip to nowhere on a sunny mid-afternoon. A young mom and her daughter, who would probably be around 3 to 4 years of age considering the fact that she was just learning to read, in the seats behind me. The mom was really young, maybe around 22 to 24 years; if I should stretch it a bit, I would say 26 and no more. The daughter was really cute to look at, at least until she started talking, dressed up in pink like any typical Canadian cutie of her age. The mom was trying to get the daughter to read and spell - that kind-of seemed like the activity at that moment considering the mom was trying to get the kid to spell colours and find missing letters in a word. The little girl was not getting the hang of things in spelling and because of that she was getting increasingly frustrated. Her mom was very patient with her though. That usually is the best part of mothers, I find. They are always very patient when it comes to teaching and dealing with their own kids. It usually takes a whole lot of naughtiness to break a mom’s patience to bits. And there’s always the “stress”, of course.

Anyway, lets get back to my story. The mom kept trying and trying and it was starting to get the kid to go bonkers. She started talking big-people stuff. “I can’t take this anymore! (insert a frustrated 40-year old female expression)”. This kept going on for a while; the little girl talked about being hungry, said that the mom was very irritating, and “put me in day-care because I don’t want to be at home anymore!” (like what!?!?!). The mom did not say a word during all this venting. When the stuff about the day-care popped out, she asked something with an earnestness which puzzled me. She said to her daughter, “Why, don’t you like spending time with your mommy anymore?”. The way the daughter was talking, it seemed like she was really looking forward to leaving the house and going on her own sweet way. Well, the only problem was she was too small for that. Four years sure is awfully small. Day-care seemed like a good start.

About the time they got off the bus, the mom was putting away her spelling book and getting ready to get off. Off come these words from the mouth of the little brat: “You piss me off. Its disgusting”. I swear by everything I believe in that this is exactly what she said and when I got off at my stop and got a place to sit myself at, I wrote it down right away and then worked on this story.

YOU PISS ME OFF - words from a little girl who is still learning to read and spell. STILL LEARNINGTO READ! What exactly would you think is wrong with this story? EVERYTHING! Consider an ideal situation - a happy home with a mom, a dad and a child. Maybe not, because that doesn’t seem to be the case with most families here anymore. Consider a less-than-ideal situation then - just a family of people living together, and having a little child among their midst. There would seem to be no circumstance under which a kid can learn such words as “piss-off” and “disgusting” or even know what they mean. This being said, I cannot even imagine the kind of childhood this child is going through. Think about the people around this child’s environment who are probably the ones using these words out loud in front of her, because I cannot think of anyone or any place else that this little girl can learn such words from - parents, grandparents, neighbours. Its either that, or the child watches too much TV.

Most adults know that children tend to pick up language mostly from what they hear that is being said around them. I remember when I was a kid, and when my parents had an argument or were discussing family matters that would probably be of no interest to me, my dad would look at me and its always this one sentence that comes out after that look: ``Go to your room!``. When I heard those words that the little girl said, I thought about my parents and other parents and about a picture I took at a bus stop in downtown Chicago of a little figurine (of a little girl holding a loudspeaker and yelling into it) with the caption, CHILDREN WILL REPEAT EVERY SINGLE THING YOU SAY! I felt that the child did that very same thing - true to every word of this caption. She probably was repeating the same words and sentences that someone must have used in front of her, along with the same expression and tone of voice.

Now I really can’t say that growing up in such an environment is going to be very healthy for any little girl, or boy, for that matter. People talk of making this world a better place. It has to start from home though. Home has to be a better place for the world to be. "Heal the world" people! Let little cute kids be themselves. Let's not lose their innocence so early. This world will not be a better place without innocent cute children.