Charles on… anything that comes along

Let me make this clear: this is not baby3 doing this in the picture. (It’s Spaunsglo’s, whoever he is.)

The tags on the picture are “sharpie [the type of pen being used], powerbook, kids, patience, love, kindness, don’t scream, don’t hit, child abuse, forgiveness, alcohol, poorparenting”. (The alcohol is for getting the marks off. Either that, or absorbing enough of it oneself will make the marks seem much less important. Hoorah!)

I don’t think it’s poor parenting - children of that age (21 months in his case) are absolute wonders at finding any unprotected writing implement and unprotected writing surface on which the implement will make an unremovable mark. Walls are of course a prime target.

What first time parents discover is that as their child gets older, all their own valuable/fragile/writable-on possessions gradually move up the walls, as though a sort of invisible tide were coming in. Either that, or they’re just flotsam with graffiti before the year’s out.

By the second child, all the stuff is already up there, though of course pens are always around. If you could only *train* them to find useful stuff. Why has nobody yet thought to put pens into lost keys? “Find the pen!”

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Patience, please.. (30 July 2005; score: 38.89%)
• 'Missing' plutonium: just as you are missing money you still own (17 February 2005; score: 30.24%)
• Now will you believe I don't write the headlines? (30 September 2004; score: 19.83%)