Gentle Parenting

My seven-year-old is quite the traveller. He took his first flight when he was six weeks old and did his first cross-country trip when he was six months old. He has already travelled by plane, train, car and boat. On long drives, those trips that take hours, he seldomly asks, “Are we there yet?” He is well accustomed to the mundane routine of standing in a line, double and triple security checks and the last gulp of water before we need to relinquish hydration in the pursuit of airport security. He even has his favourite playing spot in the city airport where he lives.  

It doesn’t help that his mother is Italian-Albanian, his father is British-Egyptian, and his step-mom is American. To make things even more confusing, we live in France. At seven, he already has his bucket list of destinations he wants to go to. It’s a testament to our time and ease of travel. It’s a testament to a generation with the world at their fingertips. We are citizens of the world, and the war against globalisation is lost. 

There are a few things he is missing out on. Gone are the days when air travel merited new clothes with a freshly shined pair of shoes. I used to get excited by the new clothes, but not my seven-year-old. There are far more stimuli in his life; he saves his excitement for bigger things. As for the travel, he lives in a time where taking a plane is as mundane as doing grocery shopping or, more accurately, as listening to his father. It’s simply a fact of his life.

On one trip, very much like all the others, we were heading to our summer house in the south. The boarding was delayed for one reason or another, and my little prince was bored and disinterested, more so than usual. He sports a high degree of aloofness that I occasionally find amusing and often irritating—a premature adolescence that continues to stretch my boundaries of patience. He’s very good that way!

I checked our boarding passes, 17D and 17E. A middle and an aisle seat on the righthand side of the plane. I try, when I can, to place him in a window seat so he can delve into his daydreaming and I can delve into my e-reader. Failing that, I have him sit in the middle so I enjoy more legroom and he can practice his voodoo charm powers on the person occupying the high-value window seat. It has become a part of our routine. It always worked until it didn’t!

We made it to our row. In the window seat there was a young girl. Fair skin, delicate features and black hair. An oversized leather jacket with metal studs coupled with undersized jeans with horizontal cuts and sparkly golden tennis shoes. She looked southern, or this is what I thought. It must have been her daring sense of fashion. It’s a thing. She was sobbing; her eyes were red and puffy. My deductive powers told me she must have been sobbing for hours. I can be clever that way. 

My son automatically went first to take the middle when he realised what was going on. He froze and retraced his steps back into the aisle. He looked at me, and I read the NO in his eyes clearer than Venus on a new moon night. I ignored his non-verbal cue and tried to nudge him back in gently, but his stance was firm. “Come on, baby, please sit down.” I used the sweetest register I could muster. “I don’t want this seat.” I could hear that he meant it.

There were people behind us, and they were in a hurry. Italians are generally laid back. They compensate for their lack of urgency in life on small occasions like this one. I’ve grown accustomed to this and accept it as a little price to pay to enjoy the beauty of Italy and Italian life. “Baby, the girl is crying. She needs you to comfort her so she will feel better.” I tried to appeal to his non-existent sense of empathy. “Then you sit with her and comfort her.” The little tyrant was unmoved by my emotional attempt.

I gauged my options, looked behind me to assess how annoyed everyone was and accepted my fate. I took the middle seat and admitted defeat. I handed the girl a tissue, a testament to my powers of empathy. As a humanist who believes we need to extend a helping hand to those who are in need, I did my part. I assured myself that her sniffling and runny nose had absolutely nothing to do with my grand gesture. I admired my generosity for a second, or a few, before I turned my thoughts to my sociopathic son.

Joke aside, I don’t think my son is a sociopath. I hope he’s not. I do, however, believe he’s a too-cool-for-school, boude-ing, temperamental tyrant. I tell myself that this is a small price to pay for a child not inflicted with the trauma overbearing parents bring upon their children. I don’t hold any of it against him because none of it is on him. Nature brings what nature brings, and it’s on the parents to polish the rock into a diamond. After all, gentlemen are not born; they’re made.

“Baby!” I addressed him while he was deep in his thoughts. How I wish I could see what he thinks about when his mind is so far away. I almost called him one more time to grab his attention when he looked at me. “You can’t always decide where I sit, Papa. I decide where I want to sit.” He stated it as a fact before turning his gaze back into the distance to carry on the important task that was just interrupted, to daydream. He didn’t wait for a response because, for him, the matter was closed. 

I respected his stance, even in the face of my authority. I admired his voice, even at the expense of mine. I reflected on his time versus mine. I believe we are better parents to our children than our parents were to us. Not because we are a refined specimen of humanity but because we know better than they did. Thanks to the knowledge nuggets that Social Media bestows on us on a daily basis, we have successfully reduced psychology to a series of cliche statements that we carry proudly on a daily basis.

I also believe our time as children was a much easier time to wrap our heads around. Life seemed simpler back then. Happiness seemed closer back then. Pleasures seemed attainable back then. We had far fewer variables to balance the equation that is life. I didn’t have New York on my bucket list. I don’t think I even knew it existed. Had I known of its existence, I’m not sure I would’ve asked to go. Oh, how life has changed between back then and now? One thing between back then and right now hasn’t changed. A gentle child requires gentle parenting.