At work tonight BoPeep taught a class.
There was a woman there who was a stay at home mom. The child is less than a year old. The woman is very smart. She can talk a lot. And she talks about babies and children. Anybody's babies and children.
It's irritating to me. Why doesn't she stop talking about that? I lie around on the floor all the time and look at my fingernails while I think about other things. I don't talk about that. I watch the squirrel in the back yard. I do talk about him, but not a lot.
I know why she doesn't stop talking about it. It's her child and she loves her baby. Her little bundle of joy is fascinating to her and fascinated by her. Every day something new and different happens and there could never be enough people to share this beautiful, joyful life that's developing while she watches.
You know, though, I have a hang up here. I don't want to hear everything and I don't want to hear the amazing insights into the behavior of every single child on the planet. It's so strange to choose to derive individuality from the near union with someone else and then to take away the individuality of other children's development by instantly recognizing as something that your own child already did.
This is not limited to babies, I realize. I do the same things in lots of situation. And it feels good to do it. Recognition and sympathetic feelings.
But, unless I'm the one experiencing the recognition and sympathy, I just don't care.
Which often leaves me without much to say.
Um.
Posted by dotty at February 22, 2006 11:27 PM | TrackBack