Why Our Sons Have It So Much Better Than Us

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The other night, I was reading to my children from Alice inWonderland: “When suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close byher...” And, suddenly, I plunged down a rabbit hole 35 years back in time, and Ionce again saw the White Rabbit pulling a watch out of his waistcoat pocket and saying,“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I shall be late!” Only this time I saw him differently.As a child, I had thought the White Rabbit a wondrous, absurd creature. But asa middle-aged man, I realized that he is a typical adult. And the main thing that makeshim an adult, in the eyes of a child, is his obsession with time.As an adultin what sociologists call “the rush hourof life,” I count every minute. I know the children need to be at school at 8:30a.m., before the doors close. To get enough sleep, they need to go to bed five minutesfrom now. And if in about 20 minutes they stop trying to escape from captivity, then Iwill have nearly two hours to work, before catching the bare minimum of just under sevenhours sleep that I need to function tomorrow.That is how modern man thinks. Bycontrast, kids are a lot like early man. They believe in evil spirits, are prone toviolence and have no sense of time. Our adult internal clock baffles them. The otherevening I overheard two of my preschool-age children playing Mommies and Daddies. Thedialogue went as follows:Son: “I mean, my bedtime is going tobe in eight minutes.”Daughter: “It’s your bedtimenow.”Son: “But I have a lot of work to do.”They really think we sound like that. And, to them, the White Rabbit is our prototype.He is the ultimate adult, with his funny work clothes (the fan and the white kid gloves),his fear of his boss (“Oh! The Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! Won't she be savage if I'vekept her waiting!”) and his incomprehensible job (some sort of herald to the Kingand Queen of Hearts). Lewis Carroll, creator of Alice, was quite clear about hisintentions for the character. In his article Alice on the Stage, he wrote thatthe White Rabbit was intended “as a contrast, distinctly” with Alice:“For her 'youth,' 'audacity,' 'vigour,' and 'swift directness of purpose,' read'elderly,' 'timid,' 'feeble,' and 'nervously shilly-shallying'…”The White Rabbit has helped me understand that most of my conflicts with my children areabout time. I am always trying to hurry them up. They have no idea why. I have spent yearsstudying them as a kind of primitive tribe, and am doing my best to adopt their sense oftime. Meanwhile, I am plotting my revenge. When I am old and have all the time in theworld, and they are in the rush hour of life and have none, I shall ring them atchildren’s bedtime with endless meandering anecdotes just as they are trying to packoff their kids with a swift read of Alice. Continue Reading

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