Teach them all the wrong lessons
"... and the little polar bear snuggled close to the penguin and slept. The next day the friendly penguin took the little polar bear across the great, broken ice to his mother. And the little polar bear's mother smiled at the friendly penguin and the little polar bear laughed. The end."*
I stared at the book as my toddler flicked at the pages, occasionally pointing to balloons, a toy train and a fuzzy stuffed seal the little polar bear cuddled in his crib.
"What the heck is this?" I asked my wife, who may have bought the book; I wasn't going to ask.
"What do you mean?"
"Polar bears and penguins."
She shrugged. "What about them?"
I sat for a second, wondering just how far the under-education of America had crept into my home.
"Polar bears live in the northern hemisphere," I said.
"So?" she asked.
Oh, no, I thought. Is my wife a victim of bad geography?
"Penguins live in the southern hemisphere," I said. "Like Australians."
She nodded.
"I know. So what? It's a kid's book," she said using the kind of logic politicians use when trying to justify a pay raise. "He (taxpayers) doesn't know."
Sure he doesn't know. But after reading him "The Happy Little Polar Bear Meets Winky the Penguin" enough times, he will know this: polar bears and penguins live a 1960s hippie commune existence, and they cuddle _ a lot.
"But polar bears and penguins could never meet in the wild," I said. "And if they did, the penguins would be appetizers, not playmates."
Why is it so hard for most Americans to wrap our noggins around the concept of proper training? Our kids are employees we don't have to pay but can't fire. So, if we structure our parenting under the business axiom of time is money, it will help us in the long run by teaching our kids something right the first time. That will keep us out of the high school counselor's office trying to explain why little Johnny still takes a bottle before naps.
But we can't. Why? Because the people who need to do the retraining all read the madcap adventures of the Little Polar Bear and Winky when they were kids. Polar bears and penguins? Why not? Pandas are big, fluffy bundles of love? Sure. Chimpanzees are monkeys? If they can't correct you, it must be true.
"You take things too seriously," she said. "It's a cute story."
Yeah, maybe so, but if our boy ever runs into a polar bear, I hope he knows better than to try and snuggle with it.
*Although I rewrote this text for copyright reasons, it is based on many volumes of similar children's books that teach our kids it's OK to approach and hug wild animals that consider us food.
