Even in a generation of overprotective parenting, I was a standout. As soon as our son reached crawling age, I childproofed the house with enough plastic to start a recycling business. All of the empty outlets had little caps and
Even in a generation of overprotective parenting, I was a standout.
As soon as our son reached crawling age, I childproofed the house with enough plastic to start a recycling business.
All of the empty outlets had little caps and the coffee table had a cushy edge.
All of the kitchen cupboards at ground level had latches.
All of the doors that led to anywhere troublesome had knob covers.
So many gates swung open and shut that leaving the house felt like a cattle drive.
At my wife’s insistence, after he grew and started to get more curious, I put up cleats to keep the cords for all of our shades out of his reach.
Still sitting somewhere in the bottomless “to do” pile all homeowners have is a strange contraption to lock the oven. Probably time to move it to the circular file, because it’s too late.
Just in the past few days, my 3-year-old has begun to crack the code.
After he helped me unload the dishwasher, I watched him unlatch one of the cupboard doors. Luckily it was the least interesting of the cupboards – no food-prep gadgets or household cleaners to be found.
I saw it only peripherally, or maybe through the “eyes in the back of the head” that all parents sprout, so I’m not sure if he realized how he had accomplished it. It’s also possible Daddy drilled it too low in his haste. Or that a low-tech sliver of plastic made overseas for pennies can only withstand so much torture before surrendering.
But it wasn’t an isolated incident. After his bath one night, I turned around to find him examining the pieces of the door knob cover.
“What does this do, Daddy?” he said with genuine curiosity.
“Uh, well, it, um …” I stammered, snapping it back in place while diverting his attention.
The device seemed like such simple genius, making the knob tricky enough to twist that my mother still calls for help with it. Apparently in a toddler’s mind it’s easier to disarm the security system than punch in the secret code.
This all goes along with a general surge in mischief. At some point, kids figure out how to use their height – Sean’s has been a fixture in the 90-plus percentiles – to their advantage. Furniture is no longer about comfort, but about leverage to reach fascinating and previously inaccessible things.
Neatly wound window shade cords, for example.
No longer is the house a soft, danger-free cocoon that will keep him from harm when we’re too slow to react. Then again, I don’t treat him like Humpty Dumpty anymore, either.
Now comes a dance that will span most of two decades, where we let him experience as much of the world as possible without letting it crash down upon him. Someday he’ll walk out our door as a man, even if he has to hurdle three gates to do it.
• Journal Times reporter Mike Moore writes Daddy Talk. Mommy Talk is written by reporters Marci Laehr Tenuta and Janine Anderson.
