musings

[lapsedmodernist]

Some time ago I wrote about my surprise that Fionn never had a transitional object, and someone made a joke that maybe he had kept it a secret from me. I thought it was really funny, and then later realized that the reason I thought it was so funny was because the idea of baby privacy was so impossible and incongruous. It was a good, startling recognition, and I want to make sure I cultivate that recognition into a sustained awareness--because I think so many power dynamics/struggles between parents and children must, on some level, be rooted in this (totally understandably formed but often invoked beyond its expiration date--at least in my family) internalized notion that the concept of a child's privacy is laughably impossible. Which, of course, it is, at this stage of development. But I can see just going with that internalization, stretching it into a continuum, where a child's lack of (a right to) privacy is naturalized. I don't know how easily that paradigm shift happens for parents--I don't know how easily it will happen for me--if my knee-jerk sense of it will, of its own accord, catch up with Fionn's development as he becomes more independent and differentiated form me--but just in case it doesn't, I want to hold on to this, to make sure that I am committed to conceptualizing and respecting his privacy, even if it is not something that shifts in me naturally.

Comments

[christophrawr.livejournal.com]

Hm.

[cascadianista.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU.

I ... might have had some issues with that in my family. :)

[monkey1976.livejournal.com]

awesome post.

kids that have their privacy respected grow up to be adults that respect the privacy of others.

my mom snooped on me all the time as a kid and i almost ruined a few relationships in my early 20s because i indulged in the same behavior.

i've since trained myself out of it, but it was hard.

[msmsgirl.livejournal.com]

I just --

YES.

Fionn is so lucky to have you as a mom!

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

HEY when are you coming back from your roadtrip? I was thinking of coming to NYC the weekend after July 4th, I know missmimesis will be in SF, but she thought you would be around, in which case could I possibly crash? My other usual crash spaces are currently unavailable as apropos is in PNG and theophile's cousin has a three-week-old baby, whom I would love to see, but I don't necessarily want to spend the night there...