Happy New Year, Happy 2010.

My sister-in-law sent an email commenting how remarkable it was to look at 2010. My friend MAS wrote a blog about how many changes the 2000's held and commented that December, 2009 continued the trend; most involving increased insecurity. Well, all in all, it wasn't one of my better decades either. MAS writes a good blog and has written two good novels and assorted pieces of short fiction - her blog, with a list of her fiction,  can be found at:

Mary Anne Stahl

One thing I envy MAS - she writes about her nearest and dearest with impunity. My N&D complain. I see their point: having a N&D who writes a blog shouldn't have any impact on you. I occasionally write about good friends: Good Friend Marie never reads my blog, so she's safe. Good Friend Lynn rarely reads my blog and is very good natured: she laughs when I describe her machine threatening aura. Good Friend Chris points out factual errors and says nothing about the substance. So, for different reasons, they are safe to caricature. But, for the most part, I write about politics, books and social/cultural concerns. Yes, these are important to me; but they are also very safe topics.

One thing I'd like to do but won't: write transcripts of grandchildren's conversations. I have four grandchildren, two boys, one just turned six, one almost six, and two girls, both three years old. There are fascinating similarities. Both boys at three were mad about trucks and cars and things that moved earth. Both at six are obsessed with dinosaurs. This reflects similar parental pre-occupations: these children are read to and visit museums and parks.

At three, both girls love princesses and pink. Both like to put a piece of cloth on Candy, my French Bulldog, and pretend she is their baby. They kiss her on the nose and feed her pretend food. Candy is the perfect pet for a three year old girl. She will sit by either girl for hours and enjoys the kisses. Belle Belle, the Miniature Schnauzer, finds that very boring. She shakes the blanket off and prefers more active activities. Again, shared parental concerns: you pet dogs very gently and do not squeeze Candy's little cheeks and smoosh them. You do not make Belle sit with a blanket when she wants to run around. Both little dogs are aware of potential problems with toddlers and view them warily. But they are relaxed around the grandchildren and remember them from visit to visit. (Both sets of grandchildren live at a distance and we see them irregularly.)

General and standard: those few paragraphs could describe any middle class child in urban England or North America with university educated parents that has pets and is child-centered. It describes a very narrow band of six and four year old preoccupations among the vast number of children that age in the earth's population.  A specific society, culture and economic position in 2010:  that's what we're describing.

What are the pre-occupations of a six year old in Kenya? In China? I'd assume a basic structure involving exploring boundaries, social and biological ones. Dinosaurs involve boundaries of strength and power and history. Something so big and so powerful is gone and we find out about it using a bone here, a bone there. Epistomology, Intro thereto. .

Princesses and pink? It's a social world being explored; again, boundaries with a gender emphasis. I'd expect a little child, where ever, would be exploring the same boundaries using the cultural tools presented. That is, of course, assuming a full tummy and fairly secure immediate social network.

I also assume that child development is tied to biology and if the child falls within certain, rather flexible parameters the child will be exploring similar issues. Blind, deaf, autistic children? I don't know. They are exploring the world, thinking about it, trying to figure it out. The difference in biology might make a difference in tools to explore; I don't know if the subject of exploration is different.

I'm also looking at this as involving cognitive development. Perhaps the fascination with dinosaurs is exploring growing emotional development, self awareness: dinosaurs, despite strength and size, no longer exist. Will I, or my family, no longer exist at some future time?

If we look at particular influences, how much difference does it make that my American grandson lives within two miles of one of the world's great cities, San Francisco, and within two miles of grandparents, aunt and four cousins? The other grandson lives in a mining village full of unemployed miners where everyone knows everyone else but he has no kin other than his immediate family.

We could continue particularizing, but finally, ultimately, get to the unique: something individual in each child that is what remains as 'added value' after everything else has been subtracted. Speech is a way of discovering it, thus the transcriptions.

One example.

During son, daughter-in-law, grandson and granddaughter's visit, we went to see Friend Marie and her husband John. Kent has had unusual snow and ice this Christmas. We came in, sat down in the living room in front of the fire and John commented that he hated snow. The topic changed, we talked about other things.

John got up and got a tray of goodies to pass around. He stood in the middle of the room. My granddaughter got up and stood in front of him. He's very tall, she's very small. She said, "You don't like snow."

He agreed he did not like snow.

She said snow was good and pointed out the many reasons why snow was good then sat down beside her mother.

It was unique to her - the selection of interesting information presented by the adults, strange and familiar, the consideration of the problem, why anyone would dislike snow, and her reaction to it: point out the pleasures of a snow covered ground. None of the others would have analyzed the problem or reacted to it in the same way. I think when she is my age there will be a thread of constancy in her reactions, and someone hearing the story will recognize her. say, yes, that's the way she is.

Back to 2010. I hope the next decade is better than the last but am pessimistic. Do people like Cheney and Bush have grandchildren? Cheney has, and by all accounts is very fond of them. Bush, by all accounts, was a very indulgent father.

Now grannies are not supposed to objectify their grandchildren. They're supposed to indulge and bake and think they're the splendid-ist most perfect little people ever. That's good. Somebody other than the family dog ought to think you're perfect. That's something Grandpa Cheney might well have done. But if he'd taken a step further, had seen his grandchildren in the abstract, as children, representatives of other children, would he have been as willing to cause the deaths of so many six year olds, so many three year olds, as he has? What are his nightmares like? Does he see little foot steps in the sands of Iraq that disappear? So far, no further, a break... gone? A uniqueness lost? I doubt it.

He didn't learn from dinosaurs. Or perhaps he learned the wrong thing. Get bigger, get stronger, get more aggressive... protect oneself and one's own. Dinosaurs taught us another lesson, one he ignores. One can learn to fly.

But I don't think our species will soar anytime soon and so I don't think 2010 and what follows will be very pleasant.

Best wishes and a Happy New Year anyway.