Responsibility

A conversation with my man the other day has had my thinking a lot about responsibility and how it's learned and what it really means.


Google says responsibility is:

• the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.
• "women bear children and take responsibility for child care"
• synonyms: authority, control, power, leadership
• "a job with greater responsibility"
• the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something.
• "the group has claimed responsibility for a string of murders"
• synonyms: blame, fault, guilt, culpability, liability
• "they denied responsibility for the bomb attack"
• the opportunity or ability to act independently and make decisions without authorization.
• "we would expect individuals lower down the organization to take on more responsibility"

I think the third definition is the kind of responsibility I'm looking for my boys to feel.  In a very real way I am responsible for their health and safety.  Legally and morally they are completely dependent on me and any responsibility they have, they have because I give it to them.  If I give them responsibility but then punish or shame them (parental disappointment in a child is shaming them for not living up to parental expectations) then they didn't really have the authority to act independently because there was a "wrong" way to do things.

I think the responsibility that most people put on children is the second definition above and look at all those synonyms: blame, fault, guilt, culpability and liability.  Those are not feelings I want to be heaping on my little boys.  They're seriously shitty feelings but they're commonly used to manipulate children into acting in ways that their parents approve of and for lots of kids they work for a while.  Eventually the relationship and the child's trust in the parent erode to a point where the child fights back, because what self respecting person wouldn't fight against some who uses their love and dependence to manipulate them?  Or they don't become a self respecting person and child's trust in the parent doesn't erode and instead their trust in themselves as people capable of making good decisions weakens  until they stop listening to their inner voices and lose their capacity for independence.  Is there another outcome I'm missing (and I don't think the above options are mutually exclusive)?  The rebellious teenage years are the first case.  They are not inevitable.  All the people around us who follow the "expert" advice of whomever without thinking about whether it really makes sense are examples of the latter.

I want my boys to be able to trust their inner voices and to know in a very deep way that their life and experiences and wants are valid.  I think that the way to get there is to help them succeed by giving them real responsibility that they are ready for.  That means setting them up to succeed by not giving them responsibility they aren't ready for and then shaming or punishing them into meeting expectations (giving them the message that they aren't good enough as they are). Its means that when I give them responsibility it will truly be their responsibility and they will be able to "act independently and make decisions without authorization."  There aren't a lot of real responsibilities I can give to a 6 and a 2 year old, but there are some.  I can give them their own money that they can spend however they wish and with very few exceptions I can let them make and learn from their own decisions.  They can chose what to put in their bodies.  They need  me to prepare their food still but I can prepare the foods they like and offer new things and let them decide without pressure what they want.

I don't let them hit each other or break things that aren't okay to break, but it's MY responsibility to keep them safe from each other and keep other's property safe from their exploration.  They are learning what is acceptable and what isn't, right now they are young and haven't developed the ability to think through an action to its likely results AND judge if it's a good idea consistently yet (or at all in the 2 year old's case).  Plenty of adults have a hard time with that whole thinking things through and impulse control so it's seriously unfair to expect it of such young and inexperienced children.

As they mature I'll experiment with giving them more responsibility and see how they do.  If they handle it well and seek out more responsibility I'll let them do more.  If they let me know verbally or by their actions that they can't handle it yet (A can't be safely left alone with the cats for example, he still pulls their tails) then I will stay closer in those situations until it seems like it might be time to try again.  By handle it well I don't mean they make the choices that I specifically think they should make, as long as their choices that don't cause active harm to themselves and others or property I'd like to let them explore their own choices, whatever they are.