Appreciation is Not What It Seems

I've been reading through C.S. Lewis' autobiography, Surprised by Joy. It's not what I expected, and he even says that it probably won't be what people think it will be. But in his fashion there have been some areas where he has taken a deeper look at ordinary life to really challenge a common thought or action and to see it from a different more true to reality angle.

Lewis writes about how when he was young his family would be invited to parties where the locals would gather for dance and mingling. He was not fond of these things at all. Later in life he comments how when his father finally gave him permission to turn down invitations he did so. At these event people would take part in gossip and small talk things he was not interested in. So as to seem interested and to take part in conversations he felt forced into he would feign interest. He mad a firm resolution to not discuss things he was actually interested in due to people thinking his big words and more heady interested were adorable and would egg him on.

Through these experiences and other experiences of being reprimanded as a child he discovered how unjust our lives can be when we are trying to be and live honestly and how we may be rewarded when we do the opposite.

"I am here struck by the curious mixture of justice and injustice in our lives. We are blamed for real faults but usually not on the right occasions. I was, no doubt, and was blamed for being, a conceited boy; but the blame was usually attached to something in which no conceit was present. Adults often accuse a child of vanity without pausing to discover on what points children in general, or that child in particular, are likely to be vain. Thus it was for years a complete mystery to me that my father should stigmatize as "affection" my complaints about the itching and tickling of new underclothes. I see it all now; he had in mind a social legend associating delicacy of skin with refinement and supposed that I was claiming to be unusually refined. In reality I was in simple ignorance of that social legend, and if vanity had come into the matter would have been much prouder of having a king like a sailor. I was being accused of an offense which I lacked resources to commit. I was on another occasion called "affected" for asking what "stirabout" was. It is, in fact, a "low" Irish word for porridge. To certain adults it seems obvious that he who claims not to know the Low must be pretending to be High. Yet the real reason why I asked was that I had never happened to hear the word; had I done so I should have piqued myself on using it."

This got thinking about raising my own kids and seeing other people interact with young people. Children are many times considered and called brats or needy when they cry and seemingly misbehave when they are young. But, in reality, they may have no other way to communicate than to cry such as babies. Or they may not know the words to use to express how they are feeling. So we able them as something they actually aren't living out. We don't get out of our own views of how older children or adults act to investigate what is really going on.

I really started meditating on this during this time of accumulating gifts especially during this time of year. Children are said to be unappreciative if they break a toy or leave toys on the floor or outside after they are finished playing or move on to another form of play. But that is how more mature people show appreciation. We take care of things, keep them clean, put them away. But for young people, they show their appreciation by playing with and using items for the adventures, parties, tea times, battles, orphanages they take part in in their imaginations. That toy has been left where it was because it went through the throughs of imagination. Now, on to appreciating another toy. But we say they are unappreciative because they aren't putting them back where they go when in reality they are appreciating the heck out of it.

Breaking things is even still appreciation. They naturally want to push the envelope and see how they or their item can go. How far can I hit, push, jump, stand on, until I've gone to far. Adeline got a toy violin for Christmas and that item received the most joy out of any other gift. But it wasn't more than a day or two later when she had already broken the bow. How did she do that you ask. Well, she was standing on it. She wanted to see if she could. Could it handle it. In fact, she stands on everything! She wasn't be in unappreciative. She was devastated when it broke. But an older passerby would point out how she, in their mind, is as well as not taking care of her things.

Now in reality, we do need to teach our kids about taking care of their toys so that they can appreciate and use them for longer. But I think what needs to be corrected is our labeling of them in the moment, because the reality is these are actually prized possessions that are being used and played with and adding to imagination. They aren't kept in the box, to gather dust, to then one day be sold because they are still in mint condition.