Small children know a lot. They know rules to games, jump-rope rhymes, how to avoid eye contact with grown ups, how to hide the ubiquitous yet contraband Pokémon cards, even how to calculate time, since they are never done playing until at least two full minutes past the bell that signals recess is over. More importantly, children know how the world is run, and who runs it.
Kids also know things that turn out to be wrong, but I think the ratio of absolutely and undeniably correct information to that which will later fall away is worth a second glance. It turns out that I mis-learned a little bit of biology back in the day, shaping my behavior for years to come: I tried my best to tip-toe around and avoid stepping on worms that came out after it rained, as I’d been told that if you cut a worm in two, both ends grow to become their own worm. I spent many an unpleasant morning recess or walk home from school almost paralyzed trying to solve the dilemma of finding a place to step so I was not to blame for making more of these smelly, slimy, dreadful creatures.
I believed this for a very long time. And just to prove that I was correct in finally understanding I was wrong, I did a little internet research this morning. I’d hate to propagate a falsehood for the next generation, but I’d really hate it if it turns out it is true, and I’ve discredited my early learning for no reason.
But here’s one lesson I should have learned, because it’s rock solid. And it only took me my entire childhood, all that came after it, and an additional six years on my son’s elementary school playground. Here it is: “You’re not the boss of me.” Simple. Straightfoward. Granting permission to make others back off from their unpleasant demands on us. Asserting personal agency for choices. And it avoids the nose-crinkling-snottiness of “Mind your own business,” and the pushy defiance of “You can’t make me.” It is more sophisticated, elegant, moving into the realm of existential self-responsibility. Exactly the kind of lesson we assume we’ll learn on asphalt.
I should have heeded this lesson a long, long time ago – perhaps in my first childhood. Shakespeare thought one’s second childhood came at the end of life (“sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”). Since I’ve always been an over-achiever, perhaps I’m coming to mine a bit earlier. I still have teeth, eyes and my taste buds are still working just fine, thank you. But there are some gaps in my knowledge, and I can fill at least one of these with playground wisdom.
I’ve begun to deconstruct the idea of telling someone they are not the boss of you, in all its forms. Whose boss am I? My child? My husband? My parents? My friends? My colleagues? The weather? The people who stopped making Chocolate Heath Bar Crunch ice cream and instead only make Coffee Heath Bar Crunch? Was I ever the boss of my Labrador retriever? My childhood dog? My childhood gerbil? Am I the boss of anyone other than myself?
The answer ought to be simple: “No.”
Yet I am a parent, and, as my son told me once, a couple of years ago, as we were bandying about this idea of no one being the boss of him, “But you’re my Mother. You are the boss of me.” He was right in so many ways – I’ve been the boss of bedtime and tooth brushing and homework and when favorite pants have to be replaced because they’re too short and how many bites of vegetables he’s to have before he can call a meal quits. But he’s also the boss of himself, and has been all along, as he has mostly complied yet found ways not to. As he gets older, he generates more and more ideas for himself, more and more plans, and I need him to know that for a while he’s gonna have two bosses – himself and me – and that this job sharing will only last a brief time until I get demoted, step out of certain conference calls, get assigned to less and less crucial tasks, until eventually I retire, and he’ll be the full-time, can’t-get-around-it boss of himself. I’ll remain an interested share-holder, but without any voting rights, or perhaps I’ll become the supportive human relations personnel, the . . . I’m at a loss for exactly where in this organization my office and in-box will reside, but I certainly won’t have the president’s corner office, like I used to have.
And here’s the best part of what the kids on the playground know already – it’s no fun to be the boss of anyone else. So when I’m done with that job, done even with the job-sharing version that we’re in now, done as vice-president, I ought to feel the complete freedom that comes with being the boss of only one person: myself.
I instead have numerous moments when I hold firmly to the belief that I’m responsible for lots of other people. I (silently, of course, with no outward detectable signs) think I’m the boss of my husband – I evaluate his ideas, plans, and behaviors against the standard of me, and when they align, I assign him high marks. When they don’t, I’m ready to call a meeting. None of this gets spoken (OK, mostly it doesn’t), but I’m reading every memo I internally write to myself. Some I mark “urgent” and pull to the front of all my other business for the day. I spend so much time figuring out how to accomplish what I think he needs to do, that I’ve completely lapsed in my bossing duties of myself. I’ve gone AWOL in my own job – taking responsibility for me and only me – and have done the equivalent of spent the day playing solitaire on the computer. Zoned right out of my responsibilities and nudged my way into someone else’s office, sat down at their desk, and started going through their files, changing their passwords, mucking about in what was not mine to muck with.
Oops.
“You’re not the boss of me,” he ought to silently respond to my silent takeover.
“You’re right,” is what I ought to say in return. But he might get my out-of-office automatic reply.