Notable Neighbours
The children on the block, our neighbours, represent a truly mixed bag of personalities. As might be expected. Given the fact that some behaviours are genetically inherited, others inherited through familial practise, and others yet fashioned through individual exposures and experiences throughout the growing stages in childhood, producing our idiosyncratic selves. When we moved into this neighbourhood fifteen years ago, a very quiet, back-street great for children, there were in fact quite a few young children in residence.
All of these children became very well known to us. Some were shy, some happy to be noticed by adults but all of them with rare exception, were glad to form the familiarity of casual friendship owed to the consanguinity of an extended community in the absence of the closeness of extended family. It is as though for young children in our modern communities where families no longer live in close physical proximity, other childrens' grandparents are loaned out through pleasantly caring casual encounters.
When we were raising our own children in a variety of geographies we saw our own children experiencing the interest evinced in their presence and well being on the part of other adults, older and with greater experience than us. This exposure to the wider social contract gave us a definite sense of security, that our children were surrounded by some element of the larger society from the community in which we lived that represented people drawn to the lives of young children.
We had next-door neighbours at the first home we owned, as parents of young children, who treated our children in a very especial way, exhibiting a kindly tolerance for their chattering presence. An encouraging older-elder-presence that presented a familiarity, a stability, a comfort in the knowing that should they ever be in need absent our presence, temporary care would be extended to them in a dear and caring manner.
It was only natural that we would extend this attitude to other peoples' children when we ourselves gained elderly maturity, and the children toward whom we extended warm interest paid us back in kind, always happy to see us, to stop and chat with us, to talk about their concerns. With one exception: that of the two children who were our next-door neighbours, who, like their father, a severely introverted man, responded to no overtures.
Turning their head aside as though any greeting we sent their way had somehow wafted high up in the atmosphere completely missing their ears, they would scuttle away from our near presence. Most unlike their mother who was endowed with a personality in direct contrast to her husband's. A woman whose sunny smile of greeting and happy chatter would dissolve anyone's exterior of icy suspicion.
All the children aged 2 and 4 and 7 when we first came to this house we live in are now well grown and hardly recognizable physically from how they appeared when we first knew them. Our casually friendly relationship remains intact, although some are now in their final years of secondary school and others now attend university. The two next door have finally succumbed to the occasional shy mumble of acknowledgement.
And we've a new crop of youngsters, moved within the last few years into the neighbourhood. They're all friendly, happy and outgoing children, happy to be addressed by name, ready to engage in conversation. Among them is one group of siblings whose social graces and readiness to submit to a child-adult relationship goes beyond the norm. There are four siblings; three girls, one boy, aged 6 to 13; overwhelmingly courteous, curious about everything, eager to engage.
Yesterday, Cassie, the youngest little girl, was wheeling about on her bicycle on our quiet street. She was all alone, she groaned, because her sisters, 8-year-old Tessa, and 10-year-old Michaela, didn't want to play with her. She wasn't allowed, she told me, to bicycle past the corner unless someone like Alexi, her 13-year-old brother was with her and this displeased her because Alexi wasn't available, he was hosting a friend on a sleep-over.
Life was really so unfair. She hates being the youngest. She can't do anything. No one wants to play with her, although Michaela has offered, once a week, to accompany her around the block. Tessa doesn't want to be bothered. It just isn't fair! Ah, was my rejoinder, you may not know this, but as the baby of the family you're the most cherished ... that means loved. And her face lit up, a smile creased from edge to edge of her plump little face.
Really?! Yes, really. You feel neglected, but as the youngest you're everyone's favourite and if you really need something everyone, your mother, father, brother and sisters will always be there for you. Father? Andre isn't my real father ... no matter, he feels no differently about you than if he were. And that's another thing! they're always talking, never stop talking, don't they know we don't like it?
Who? My mother, Marianne, and Andre, they're always talking, why do they talk so much, why don't they pay more attention to me, I don't want to wait until they're finished talking! Well, Cassie, they're always concerned about you, doing things for and with you, don't you think it's fair they get the chance sometimes to talk to one another? A frown creases that little face with the lisping voice.
Cassie, why don't you try to play with Sara and Amanda, across the road? Can't. Why not? Michaela told me not to. She did? Yes, Amanda told Sara that I'm black, and Sara told Michaela, and now I can't play with them.
All of these children became very well known to us. Some were shy, some happy to be noticed by adults but all of them with rare exception, were glad to form the familiarity of casual friendship owed to the consanguinity of an extended community in the absence of the closeness of extended family. It is as though for young children in our modern communities where families no longer live in close physical proximity, other childrens' grandparents are loaned out through pleasantly caring casual encounters.
When we were raising our own children in a variety of geographies we saw our own children experiencing the interest evinced in their presence and well being on the part of other adults, older and with greater experience than us. This exposure to the wider social contract gave us a definite sense of security, that our children were surrounded by some element of the larger society from the community in which we lived that represented people drawn to the lives of young children.
We had next-door neighbours at the first home we owned, as parents of young children, who treated our children in a very especial way, exhibiting a kindly tolerance for their chattering presence. An encouraging older-elder-presence that presented a familiarity, a stability, a comfort in the knowing that should they ever be in need absent our presence, temporary care would be extended to them in a dear and caring manner.
It was only natural that we would extend this attitude to other peoples' children when we ourselves gained elderly maturity, and the children toward whom we extended warm interest paid us back in kind, always happy to see us, to stop and chat with us, to talk about their concerns. With one exception: that of the two children who were our next-door neighbours, who, like their father, a severely introverted man, responded to no overtures.
Turning their head aside as though any greeting we sent their way had somehow wafted high up in the atmosphere completely missing their ears, they would scuttle away from our near presence. Most unlike their mother who was endowed with a personality in direct contrast to her husband's. A woman whose sunny smile of greeting and happy chatter would dissolve anyone's exterior of icy suspicion.
All the children aged 2 and 4 and 7 when we first came to this house we live in are now well grown and hardly recognizable physically from how they appeared when we first knew them. Our casually friendly relationship remains intact, although some are now in their final years of secondary school and others now attend university. The two next door have finally succumbed to the occasional shy mumble of acknowledgement.
And we've a new crop of youngsters, moved within the last few years into the neighbourhood. They're all friendly, happy and outgoing children, happy to be addressed by name, ready to engage in conversation. Among them is one group of siblings whose social graces and readiness to submit to a child-adult relationship goes beyond the norm. There are four siblings; three girls, one boy, aged 6 to 13; overwhelmingly courteous, curious about everything, eager to engage.
Yesterday, Cassie, the youngest little girl, was wheeling about on her bicycle on our quiet street. She was all alone, she groaned, because her sisters, 8-year-old Tessa, and 10-year-old Michaela, didn't want to play with her. She wasn't allowed, she told me, to bicycle past the corner unless someone like Alexi, her 13-year-old brother was with her and this displeased her because Alexi wasn't available, he was hosting a friend on a sleep-over.
Life was really so unfair. She hates being the youngest. She can't do anything. No one wants to play with her, although Michaela has offered, once a week, to accompany her around the block. Tessa doesn't want to be bothered. It just isn't fair! Ah, was my rejoinder, you may not know this, but as the baby of the family you're the most cherished ... that means loved. And her face lit up, a smile creased from edge to edge of her plump little face.
Really?! Yes, really. You feel neglected, but as the youngest you're everyone's favourite and if you really need something everyone, your mother, father, brother and sisters will always be there for you. Father? Andre isn't my real father ... no matter, he feels no differently about you than if he were. And that's another thing! they're always talking, never stop talking, don't they know we don't like it?
Who? My mother, Marianne, and Andre, they're always talking, why do they talk so much, why don't they pay more attention to me, I don't want to wait until they're finished talking! Well, Cassie, they're always concerned about you, doing things for and with you, don't you think it's fair they get the chance sometimes to talk to one another? A frown creases that little face with the lisping voice.
Cassie, why don't you try to play with Sara and Amanda, across the road? Can't. Why not? Michaela told me not to. She did? Yes, Amanda told Sara that I'm black, and Sara told Michaela, and now I can't play with them.
Labels: Miscellaneous
posted by Pieface @ 11:24 AM
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