On the train from Zurich to Basel, watching two Swiss babies of three or four years old, gutta-percha and freely mastering the space between the seats, I came across the idea of the nature of Russian parental edification.
All these “get up, I said”, “you will fall, to whom I say”, “sit still”, “now only with your father”; then the sanctions — “I’ll take it out / leave it / I won’t take it anywhere else / I’m calling my father / no water park” and, accordingly, measures that have nothing to do with warnings, namely: derg, slap, “zadolbal”.
So (by the way, by that time the crumbs had managed to lie on everything they could, didn’t share the toy, looked out the window and now listened to the book on my mother’s lap), what a simple decision formed in me regarding education. Its name is ontological, that is, built into consciousness, inescapable longing for power. Okay, let’s be honest — for unlimited power.
- 21 principles of good parenting through the eyes of a child
And who would refuse? Nobody! We just don’t admit it. For it, power, in our anamnesis is sacralized to the limit, and its possession is a general mental project. True, he is as general as he is doomed. But this is even good, it gives it an artistic meaning as any kind of unrealizable happiness. I emphasize with the tediousness of a humanist — not power in itself, but precisely melancholy. For power is as inaccessible as the moon, and longing for power — here it is, please. The male part of the population has unconditional advantages here — a position, a parking lot, a wife, a child. For a woman, unfortunately, everything is more modest — a concierge, a child, a dog. You can’t clear up — but something can still be done, to strengthen the influence on the ground, so to speak. (Note, by the way, the role of the child automatically doubles — huh?) In general, the further development of family, school, any kind of upbringing and just relationships pupates around this unfortunate larva. And when private practice, which recently raised its head in our country, tries to fit the well-known costs of a gullible client into the world paradigm of childhood traumas (missed chocolate, the figure of a father slipping into alcoholism), and sociology — to attribute the nightmare to the flawed Middle Ages (the tireless eradication of the aristocracy and the emergency state of regional libraries ) — everything turns out to be much simpler and more fatal. Read the fairy tale «About the fisherman and the fish», that is, about the fisherwoman (Sonya — haha!). No, I guess that no one in the world has yet canceled professional ambitions, as well as the ant-like structure of a public building. Someone has to manage, someone has to execute. The issue is the stuffing. Management, stuffed with responsibility, is still qualitatively different from «derg-slap-zadolbal».
And what about love? Healthy ambition? Productive neurosis? That is, normal human locomotives pushing the population to outstanding results? They exist, they exist, but they treat truth like shampoo treats a bald head. For our local so-called progress is based on interest-free possession and round-the-clock control, and the child, as a handy simulator, fit in here perfectly. So he will no longer see a tablet (scooter, segway, jump rope) if he does not read two pages (one and a half, a paragraph, this is word, «to whom I said !!!»). The task, unfortunately, is not to achieve the cognitive goal of the offspring — but to make sure — yes, I am still an authority for someone (option: at least for someone) … The yearning for power in us is at best sclerotic, at worst it roams like a stray clot through the full-flowing vein of everyday sadism. (By the way, I liked that the words “sacralized” and “sclerosed” ended up on the same field — after all, phonetics never deceived me!)