Two
"When will I grow up?"
"When you learn to be more like me."
"C'mon, Mom, I'm serious."
"So am I."
"What's it like?"
"Worry more, sleep less."
"Do you have to stay awake to worry?"
"I don't, but I do."
Worry is a parent's first job and the first thing they learn. A top-down system of worry adds a helpful sense of urgency to domestic events no one else would care about without a salary. Someone has to raise the next generation of worriers. Worried parents also free their kids from years of emotional distress since any problem bad enough to upset a child is bad enough to pass along to a parent for more effective worrying. It's a workable system as long as kids worry about things their parents can fix, like hunger or homework or boredom. Easy enough. Then, when kids start to worry about more important things, parents realize they might be teaching their kids counterproductive habits, like asking other people to solve their problems.
"Did you start your homework yet?"
"Do I have to?"
"You will always have choices."
"Can you help?"
"Not if you're not doing it."
"Is that one of my choices?"
"No."
"How come you don't have any homework?"
"I do have homework, all day, every day."
"Can I watch TV first?"
"No, there are better things in life."
"Like what?"
"Like homework."
"That's not better than TV."
"Just because you're not watching TV or on TV doesn't mean you don't exist."
"What's that mean?"
"It means start your homework."
Anyone with authority has to manage controversy, parents included. If gravity keeps people on the same planet, controversy convinces them to spread apart, and the people with authority tell them how far: the next room or the next continent. In its favor, a good controversy can compensate for the trouble it causes by bringing everyone's attention to the reasons people do things, or don't do them. Like when a president or a prime minister starts a war, people quickly realize that peace might be a better option. Or when a parent denies a child access to two-dimensional projections of a three-dimensional world, it helps the child realize that the real world is more rewarding.
"You said I could."
"'Could' what?"
"Watch TV."
"When did I say that?"
"Yesterday."
"It's today."
"So can I?"
"No. There are better things in life."
"You already said that."
"It's still true."
"Are you gonna help me?"
"Help, yes. Do, no. After dinner. Today."
"Then why can't I watch now?"
"Do you want me to say it again?"
"No, but it's not a very good reason."
"It's the rule."
When reasons or reasoning fail to resolve a controversy, it usually means that someone is either not being reasonable or they are. Either way, the person with the authority has three options: give up, fight, or make rules. Parents don't like to give up on their kids too early in life and a fight wouldn't be fair, not mention illegal, so instead parents make rules. It's easy at first. When kids are toddlers a parent can quickly discover the facts in any situation, impose a preferred behavioral response according to a local ruling, and enjoy the rest of their day. Then it gets harder.
"You do it."
"Do what?"
"Watch TV."
"That's different."
"How come?"
"You go to bed before I do."
"You said you have to stay up to worry. How come you get to watch TV too?"
"I can do two things at once."
"So can I."
"Not if you're in bed."
"It's no fair."
All kids eventually learn that it's possible to bend most rules with an appeal to fairness. Fairness is kid code for justice, which means that parents have to devise and administer a homegrown justice system. It sounds simple, but in reality a family system of justice is more complicated than a herd's civic system of justice. For one thing, people in herds have already figured out all the hideous things one person can do to another, and thanks to their efforts, herds have a pre-identified set of rules with established punishment options. A family's justice system has to change and evolve as kids grow older and devise new ways to complicate their parents' lives. A family justice system also tries to love its convicts into better behavior instead of locking them away to get better at being bad. But staffing is the hardest part. A dedicated team of professionals staff and manage a herd's justice system, but at home the same person has to handle all the jobs-detection, apprehension, prosecution, judge, jury, jailer, and parole officer. In theory, an operational design that promotes task merging should improve communication between departments. In practice, kids often manage to turn one justice employee against another, even when the same person holds all the jobs. It's an inborn talent for manipulation that trains parents to be nimble, determined, honest, and effective.
"That's what you said last night after I let you stay up late. Tonight I want you to be in your bed at your bedtime."
"I couldn't sleep after I went to bed."
"You looked asleep to me."
"There was a monster in my room."
"It must have gone home before I got there. Was it scary?"
"Don't you know what a monster is, Mom?"
"Of course-it's any imaginary creature with a marketable appearance. I promise to be on the lookout for one of them so you don't have to stay awake and worry. Which one came to see you anyway?"
"One of the scary ones."
"They're all scary after dark."
"So how come Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy come at night?"
"They don't if you're not asleep."
"Do I have to be asleep at bedtime?"
"No, but you have to be in bed trying to be asleep at bedtime."
"What if I'm not tired?"
"How about if I read with you until you're tired enough to go to sleep."
"Then it'll be after bedtime."
"I can live with that."
Serial offenders, kids included, know that any justice system is made for manipulation. Parents also know this, and they know that their kids know it. They also know, or quickly learn, that their young offenders know how to use timing to get their way. It's always easier to break a rule when the relevant supervisory authority is not paying attention or would rather be insensate. There's no point in talking monsters early in the day or early in a negotiation when everyone is alert and ready to respect the rules. You need darkness, fatigue, and a deadline to seal a good deal, which is why monsters always arrive at an inconvenient time.
"What if the monster comes when I'm asleep?"
"Why do you think it will?"
"'Cause I'm scared it will, that's why. Weren't you afraid of the dark when you were little?"
"No, I was afraid of my mother."
"Do you sleep with grandmommy when you're scared?"
"I'd have to be more than scared to do that. What are you worried about anyway?"
"I dunno."
Any leader has to meet and manage the monsters in other people's minds, the things people worry about instead of thinking about things they'd rather not worry about. Since meeting other people's monsters is unlikely to solve their problems, authorities learn techniques to manage both the monsters and the people long enough for somnolence or indifference to set in. Ego appeals, for example, are a common technique mostly because commands like "grow up" or "do the right thing" are so easy to implement, though usually ineffective. Desensitization is another technique that uses relentless discussions or overexposure to a problem with the hope that the monster-afflicted individual will eventually "get over it," or at least stop paying attention. Monster-repelling rituals like room and closet tours or congressional hearings need no imagination and are effective only to the extent that they bore a distressed mind into indifference. Luminescence applies the monster-repelling effects of wattage or ideology to counter the...
