-- My six-year old nephew, upon unbuttoning his shirt and strutting around with it open.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
A Day of Gratuitous Generosity
When you are an uncle and you are taking your two nephews to see a movie, it's nice to know that there's quite a low threshold for pleasing them. This is for a number of reasons, as far as I can tell: 1) as an uncle you exist merely in a state of fun-provision, eschewing all notions of discipline apart from preventing actions that annoy you, or are dangerous (although there's flexibility in the last::: really, you simply have to balance the fun-danger quotient properly) (another general benefit of being an uncle), 2) any movie the kids see, no matter how terrible, will enthrall them by virtue of the vastness of the experience, 3) if you give them candy, then you are merely putting icing on top of the icing on top of the cake, as far as they're concerned (I give them candy).
I took my nephews to see G-Force earlier this summer, and when we approached the candy counter, I told them that they could pick something to share. The older one immediately became downtrodden, which I thought to be strange considering the offer, and I asked him what the problem was. "Well," he said mournfully "We've never had to choose just one type of candy to share, so I'm not sure how we're going to do that."
Any normal person (like a parent) would have seen through this ruse and informed the kid "Well, there's a first time for everything" but not the uncle. The uncle, if he's a properly informed uncle, says "My apologies. I didn't intend to force this dilemma upon you. Please choose an additional article of confection as a token of my regret." Anyway, that's what I did.
So I took my nephews to see Astro Boy about a week ago, and this time their mother attempted to circumvent their explicit sugar-avarice by informing them that they were not to ask about getting candy, as that is impolite, and that they should accept if offered, but, if it was not offered, they should be happy with the special day with their uncle. Admirable politeness to be sure, but somewhat undone by the fact that the older one explained it all to me, before assuring me that they would not ask for any candy. Later, as we were walking to the theater, the younger one said to me, "Uncle Rene, we'll be okay if you don't get us any candy, but it's also okay if you do."
It's worth noting that I'm quite comfortable about spoiling them, as my brother and sister-in-law are raising them with a fine set of values. I mean, I couldn't possibly corrupt their entire moral system in just one afternoon. There's an impulse to "punish" this "greed" in children by withholding the candy, or to teach them a lesson, but as an uncle, I'm in a position to simply bless them--to enjoy the way their eyes widen in excitement when they receive exactly what they were hoping for. I know that parents can't be this indulgent because then the kids would become bratty little twerps.
Uncles can, and I was, and they got their candy. Later, we did some donuts in the empty Meijer parking lot. It was totally awesome.
I took my nephews to see G-Force earlier this summer, and when we approached the candy counter, I told them that they could pick something to share. The older one immediately became downtrodden, which I thought to be strange considering the offer, and I asked him what the problem was. "Well," he said mournfully "We've never had to choose just one type of candy to share, so I'm not sure how we're going to do that."
Any normal person (like a parent) would have seen through this ruse and informed the kid "Well, there's a first time for everything" but not the uncle. The uncle, if he's a properly informed uncle, says "My apologies. I didn't intend to force this dilemma upon you. Please choose an additional article of confection as a token of my regret." Anyway, that's what I did.
So I took my nephews to see Astro Boy about a week ago, and this time their mother attempted to circumvent their explicit sugar-avarice by informing them that they were not to ask about getting candy, as that is impolite, and that they should accept if offered, but, if it was not offered, they should be happy with the special day with their uncle. Admirable politeness to be sure, but somewhat undone by the fact that the older one explained it all to me, before assuring me that they would not ask for any candy. Later, as we were walking to the theater, the younger one said to me, "Uncle Rene, we'll be okay if you don't get us any candy, but it's also okay if you do."
It's worth noting that I'm quite comfortable about spoiling them, as my brother and sister-in-law are raising them with a fine set of values. I mean, I couldn't possibly corrupt their entire moral system in just one afternoon. There's an impulse to "punish" this "greed" in children by withholding the candy, or to teach them a lesson, but as an uncle, I'm in a position to simply bless them--to enjoy the way their eyes widen in excitement when they receive exactly what they were hoping for. I know that parents can't be this indulgent because then the kids would become bratty little twerps.
Uncles can, and I was, and they got their candy. Later, we did some donuts in the empty Meijer parking lot. It was totally awesome.
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