Rude and mean and weird
You have heard of being the bigger person. You have heard of being mature about something and not acting the way children do when they are excited. You have heard about being able to handle the heat (that is, of being able to endure, even if it is hot, and it is always hot) and of not being a wimp, and of being a tough cookie, and a real-deal woman. You have heard of being willing to try things and not caring about what happens.
But there is something worse.
You know what it means to be nice to children. It means to be cheerful and patient. It means to be playful and fun and to get along with kids, to be liked by them even if they are not “right” (that is, if you dislike them). It means to be in the know about kids’ special interests and to play along when they talk about them. It means to try to understand their world, but not to try to change it or to insist it conform to what you believe (even if the kids agree with you). It means that you care what the kids think about you. If they say you’re being weird or ruder than necessary or mean or whatever, it’s because they care what you think, and so do you, and so you care about them caring what you think.
It means that you know when it is not appropriate to comment on what children say. It means that you are not always in a state of “adult appreciation” where you see children’s words as just so many facts and statements of fact, and are completely unable to relate to what children feel, and so don’t understand when they feel hurt, or scared, or sad.
It means not making rude comments, in a room full of children. It means knowing that some of these children are so little, and so far from home, and so frightened, that there is no need to be rude, even if you think you shouldn’t have to be nice to children. It means not trying to make a game out of what you find annoying or off-putting, out of some sort of twisted attempt to “earn” their affection. It means having fun but not, when that’s all you’re doing, and that’s all they’re all doing with you, and you’re all they have to hold on to in the cold, trying to imagine something like a parent.
You have seen it in real life, among adults. It is a thing that can happen, when children and adults come together in a very real and important way, when children have no other support and adults have no other companionship. You have seen it in children’s magazines, where little cartoon characters talk about things that they can’t really talk about, where adults are kind and adults are bad and you are kind and you are bad. But it doesn’t have to happen that way. You have seen it in the world, and you have seen it in fiction, and you have seen all the ways in which the kind ones are so different from you, the bad ones so different, the nice people different, the cool adults different, the kids different, and no one’s different really. You have never thought, you too! How could anyone be like this? What am I supposed to do, find another person like me? What do you mean, there are no other people like me? What did I ever do to deserve you?
No, you don’t have that thought, or maybe you do, but you’ve learned to pretend that you don’t.
You do not have it and never did have it. You are not a different kind of person, you are a different kind of thing, and you have learned to say that you can’t relate to kids the same way they can to you, and that’s okay.
You have learned to make that work. You’ve learned to say, “I’m not rude, and I’m not mean, but I don’t like them. If that doesn’t bother them, then they aren’t a wimp or a scaredy-cat or a ruffian. I am just nice and I don’t like that they’re not as nice to them as I am. If they’re not as nice, that doesn’t bother them at all and that is so much better. So, if I act that way, they’ll be happy I can act like them, and they won’t be sad or scared or anything that makes them unhappy. So it’s fine.”
You have heard all these things before, and so you’ve learned to say them when they come to mind, because they are true. But there is something worse.
Here is one. It is when your friends call you names. Your friends call you names sometimes, and you can’t tell whether they mean it or not and whether you can get away with doing what they call you, or you can’t get away with doing what they call you, or whether this will be a bad idea and you should avoid this even though it’s hard, or whether this means they really care about you, and whether you can do this and whether you must, and whether any of this matters.
You have a theory about this. It says: If you try something and it is bad, it means nothing. If it’s really bad, that means they are really interested in your welfare. If they’re interested in your welfare, then you can’t be a total fuckup, because they have some idea of what that means, and it is that things do not work that way, you are supposed to keep trying, even if things are bad, even if you have failed again and again, even if they are bad right now. Even if things are really bad. Really really.
This is not true. It is a theory.
What is true is this. The reason you say things that are cruel or rude is that it is impossible to say all the things you could say if you were not cruel and rude. The things you cannot say because they would be rude are the most important things, and the important things are bad. And these are not theories. These are not hypotheses. They are facts. This is the way it is.








