Today’s guest post comes from Steve Grooms
It should not have surprised me. When my daughter Molly began to talk, she started telling her mother and me the same things we were always telling her. Kathe and I talked to Molly almost nonstop, and much of the time we were explaining the world to her.
I should have expected that Molly would begin explaining the world to us.
“All these lights along the road?” Molly would say, her voice rising as if to form a question. “They put them there so the cars don’t bump each other in the dark.”
One day Molly spotted a poster of Garrison Keillor—Garrison with his distinctive face and beard. “When you see a face that looks like that,” Molly said to me in a helpful tone, “then you know that it is Garrison.”
We took Molly to a Lebanese restaurant one night. She was silent, her eyes wide as she took in the novelty of a restaurant that didn’t serve American food. She finally said, “It is a good thing they have this restaurant. All the people fighting the war . . . when they get tired they can come here and have their own kind of food.” Molly was responding to the fact that every night’s TV newscast featured film of civil war in Lebanon.
While explaining the universe to us, Molly almost always added her stamp of approval. She described the world as a place that was laid out in a pleasant and logical way. “They always put the cookies in the same place in the grocery store so kids and parents can find them.”
I used to reflect on the word she used so often: “they.” “They” made sure that water came out of our taps—hot and cold—when we twisted the handles. “They” put Christmas lights up at our shopping center. “They” made our world, and Molly appreciated their work. Beaming with contentment, my daughter savored the comfortable life that “they” had created for just for us.
This delighted me for years. Then I began to worry.
Yes, “they” had created a world that served our needs and delighted our senses. But “they” were not to be trusted. Sometimes “they” did things for selfish or even evil motives. Sometimes they lied. Molly needed to temper her pure trust in them. My sweet daughter needed an injection of cynicism.
Perhaps only another Midwestern parent would understand what this cost me. I adored my daughter’s unalloyed trust in her environment. Something in me balked at introducing her to the venality of human nature. And yet it had to be done. Without an appreciation of how deceptive others could be, my daughter would be vulnerable to manipulation. I had to teach a trusting child to be cynical, at least a little bit.
But how? I chose to introduce my daughter to cynicism by picking on a fat target: children’s commercial television.
One day when we were watching a cartoon show sponsored by a line of toys, I told Molly that people who wanted to sell stuff created commercials that made the toys look better than they are. “That truck probably broke right after they filmed that commercial,” I said. I showed her how tricks in film technique made the toys seem more dramatic than they were.
Molly was aghast. But she soon got in the spirit of things. When we saw other commercials, she would seek my approval by suggesting ways the sponsors might be lying to us. She began finding fault with what “they” were doing.
One morning when she was about six I went into Molly’s bedroom wake her up to face another day at school. My daughter lay on her back, eyes closed, arms splayed out like Jesus on the cross. When I rubbed her tiny chest, she spoke in a sleepy mumble. From the corner of her room the clock radio was blaring morning news.
“Daddy? What is the very best thing for you when you get up in the morning?”
Like any sensible parent, I was terrified by that question. She had been thinking about some issue and had a very particular concern. I wanted to be careful with the answer to this question, for this was not a harmless random question.
“Why, Molly,” I finally said, “the very best thing about getting up in the morning is that I get to see you and Kathe again.”
“Oh, they lie! THEY LIE!” said Molly, eyes still closed. “That just shows how they lie. On the radio they just said, ‘The best part of getting up is Folger’s in your cup!’”
What is the best part of getting up?
Trail Baboon 
Good morning to all. I’ve always liked getting up early and having a lttle time to myself. Of course, I am very glad to see my wife when she gets up. In recent years I have been getting up too early on many days which is not good because I need more sleep.
I don’t get a lot of time to myself in the early morning these days if I’m not up extra early because there are chores that need to be done including let the dog out, make coffee, and get food out for breakfast. Also, as you all know, I start the computer, check out Trail Baboon and sometimes enter a comment before breakfast. Trail Baboon is certainly high on my list of things I look forward to when I get up.
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I’ve spent a lot of time in small rural towns, Jim. A typical pattern is that farmers (and even town workers) get up with the sun and do several chores. Along about 9 AM they are ready for a break, although people in cities are often just getting going with their days then. Many farmers will drift into the local cafe and sit down at some big table used only by locals wearing bibs and seed caps. They joke, drink coffee and exchange stories, then head back for more chores.
You coming to TB after breakfast is a bit like that, checking in with your friends.
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Yes, I think my early rising comes from having parents that came from rural areas and Trail Baboon is kind of like a small town cafe.
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agreed
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folgers in my cup
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i get up run my tub grab a cup of tea let the dogs out and check the trail baboon on a normal day.get the brain working with a question from a baboon or bubby to help me sunshine coming in the window in the proper place. I like to watch a ted video on some topic that gets filed away in that to be refereed to later memory file i carry with me. i check my email my ebay and respond to stuff that’s there for me, check my sports teams on yahoo and read the paper. this is on the days when I don’t have a 7am meeting 40 minutes away in which case i shower with the tea thickening up while i rinse feed the fish and head out the door to catch up with blog sports and email on route to somewhere else. so I guess liptons in my cup is the constant. great story about molly steve, my kids didn’t have to wait to learn cynasysim it came in their dna. the book we are reading this go round for bbc iPad got one of my favorite quotes along those lines something like my job as a dad is to mess up your lives and your job as kids is to figure it out. my kindred line is that at my house it’s like stories in the bible, 50% positive examples on how to behave from good examples and 50% negative lessons on how not to behave. if you miss out on the 50% of how not to behave you are missing some of the best lessons I have to teach . reading the cereal box and the newspaper got me started years ago and today the web does the same thing with new blog and web friends and emails from china Indonesia and around the world start my day thinking someone else’s day is ending as mine begins. new perspective every day. thanks for today’s tweak. very nice
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I phone auto checker adds interesting words
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“my kids didn’t have to wait to learn cynasysim it came in their dna”
Same for my kid, Tim. She was blessed/cursed with it from Day 1.
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When daughter was in Grade One she committed some infraction and got a time out in the classroom. I guess she started singing “I’m in the Jail House Now” which made it hard for her teacher remain real serious about the whole affair
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🙂
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Fabulous story, Steve! Out of the mouths of babes. I remember sitting in traffic once when the child was about four. Suddenly she piped up from her carseat, pointing to the cars sitting in front of us. “Are they morons?” That’s when I seriously started to watch my language!
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🙂
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When Molly was 3 or 4, I took a trip to Ontario to fish for steelhead. Instead of fish we ran into a seedy hotel, drunk-out-of-their skulls Canadians, and a prostitute whom I’ll never forget. It ended up being a really funny story, which I told to Kathe and some friends when I got back.
Then I went by Molly’s door and heard HER telling a little friend my story . . . line for line, word for word. Many of the words were “effing” and “mothereffing” and variations on that. Wow. “That’s when I seriously started to watch my language!”
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My husband’s version of this was, “Daddy, what’s a bustard?”
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At least that question has an easy answer. A bustard is a bird, a rather odd bird, but a bird!
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and a holes
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The best part of my morning is having a cup of coffee. I have one cup of coffee a day, and it needs to be a doozy. We use a French Press coffee pot, and one cup of that keeps me buzzing til supper. I always check the Trail when I get up, and that is something I enjoy about the morning as well. Nice post, Steve. My daughter is particularly cynical at this point in her life, but still is a big dreamer, so I think she’s achieved a nice balance of hopefulness and caution.
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when challanged by word press as to if tyou are signed in properly or not, go to the leave a reply box and it may show your name and email address but if it shows little round deals right below the box (i had wfor word press f for facebook and t for twitter) you need to go to the w and sign in otherwise it keeps kicking you out. dale need to be allowed another beer today so i think we need to call on conn daily to fix this problem for us. does anyone have conn’s email address?
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I am confused about the Word press issue. I have never signed in to word press. How is it I can leave replies?
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Oh! Thanks VS. Now I understand perfectly!
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My understanding is that if you don’t have a WordPress account, WordPress just treats you as a guest and you can reply any way you want. If you do have a WordPress account, though, and you’re trying to reply with the same e-mail address you used with your WordPress account, it makes you prove you’re you and not some imposter by logging in. This seems to be a new thing this week.
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I don’t got to log in, and I have a WordPress account. WordPress gave me a lot of static last week, but now I’m back to normal.
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I very much like your story about your daughter, Steve. I think I can remember a time when my daughters were not at all cynical, just barely. We had plenty of negative things to talk about around our house so I’m sure it didn’t take long for them to become cynical. By the time we had children we had lots of experiences with bad things going on in thes world that were hard to ignore.
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Thanks, Jim. I didn’t make her TOO cynical. In the job she had in the 1990s, she had to work with a lot of people who were down and out. They all had stories to explain their circumstances, and Molly tended to believe them. Her nickname in the office was “Mother Theresa,” and that was not meant as a compliment!
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Not the 1990s. Early twenty-second century. Sheesh! Me with numbers. Any time I mention a number I am wrong. Any time. Every time.
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That’s some time machine you’ve got that lets you spy on your daughter’s twenty-second-century life.
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Aaargh! Another number that I got wrong! Hopeless. I’m hopeless. And I’m going right now to meet the Social Security folks about my future. I really wish I could bring along someone who isn’t dyslexic about numbers.
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Now that the window can be open a bit, I love hearing the birds when waking up, especially since it’s still at a reasonable hour – by June they’ll start at 4:30… And I do usually enjoy checking in on the blog even before my cuppa pretty strong, black tea.
Great story, Steve. When Joel was 11 or 12 he came home from some kid’s house one day and asked, “Mom, when will we stop dissing each other?” Dissing was (is?) the slang for the constant putting down young boys did/do with each other. I didn’t have the heart to tell him “maybe never with some people”, just that I didn’t know…
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
I have just returned from my first elbow physical therapy appointment.
Like Renee, I love my coffee. Every night I make it and set the delay brew timer, then wake up to hot, STRONG, coffee, with cream or more accurately, Coffeemate. Then I sip and read for a while with the dog on my lap and start to think about a Baboon reply. Baboons are a big part of my morning. I had to adjust my entire morning routine to make room for this and get to work on time!
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Great story Steve. Thanks
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I use half and half, lots of it, and sugar. My son is starting to drink coffee, but says the only way he can tolerate it is if it resembles hot coffee icecream.
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That’s the way I drink it. I call it Candy Coffee. I like coffee strong so I can still taste it after it’s been doctored.
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my mom introduced us all to french coffee with 60/40 coffee cream and lots and lots of sugar. it came out cold by the time the cream was in so you learned to add the sugar first but man was it good. i have two little girls who drink coffee every morning. i think i will wait a while to introduce them to the jameson flavoring trick.
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After the morning’s ablutions, a regular weekday ritual is to wake Daughter with a “rise and shine” and then she sort of oozes out of bed and into my lap for a few minutes. Being not-quite-eight, she has not developed too much cynicism yet, and still views the world as a magical place. Lap time with me (no matter that she hangs out on either side of the chair and has to double herself up to actually if in my lap) is sacrosanct. If I am running late and we don’t get our full allotment of time, I get fussed at and sometimes a pouty lip. You all come after that 10 minutes or so of quiet with my offspring (and even though I sometimes don’t get a comment in until later in the morning, this is my morning reading while I eat breakfast).
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Ooooooh, I still treasure those morning cuddle dAys. I get to replicate it with grandkids somewhat.
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Actually, I try to not be totally cynical by maintaining a belief that things can change for the better. I don’t know if my kids feel as strongly as I do that things can change. I hope they do.
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Agree 100%, Jim. You can have a realistic view of the way things are, and still work towards visions of what they could be. I call myself an optimistic cynic, and it pretty much sums me up!
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The sad fact is that I taught my daughter to be cynical about ads, but Bill Clinton did it for politics. Molly was 14 when Clinton won his first presidential election. Like my erstwife and me, Molly had terribly high hopes for this administration. She was a real political junkie then who would sit up to watch a whole “state of the nation” speech. By the time Clinton ran again Molly was disgusted with him and disinclined to be enthusiastic about politics in general. She has recovered some of her former optimism.
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My daughter just had a “learning to be cynical” moment while hearing about the Trayvon Martin case here in Florida. It hadn’t occurred to her before that a grown-up who was supposed to be “protecting” his neighborhood could shoot and kill a kid for (apparently) no reason, nor had it occurred to her that policemen might not always be right about the way they handle their investigations. We’ve had a few conversations about that over the past week, and I’m sometimes surprised to hear the way she’s processing the story.
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I think many white folks across the nation are troubled right now as they try to process the story. There is nothing new here for African-Americans . . . nothing new at all. But many whites are shocked and troubled.
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I am not shocked – there are too many people, young men especially, who are guilty of nothing more than walking while black that find themselves at the raw end of the law, a gun, society’s suspicions ,etc. I am troubled, but mostly angry that this crap can happen and does still happen. That there are “castle doctrine” laws (never mind conceal/carry laws) that allow citizens to shoot first and ask questions later, which greatly increases the chances of just this sort of thing to happening, is mostly what is shocking to me. Do we need these sorts of “wild west” laws in what is supposed to be a civilized and civil society? I think not. Unless you are going out into the woods to hunt deer or other abundant wild game, put your dang gun away, lock it up, and quit yer fussing about your “rights.” This kid had rights, too.
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You are on point, Anna. Florida’s a crazy place to live thanks to our former Gov. Jeb Bush, who is BFF’s with the NRA. Very scary.
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I really don’t have a “best thing” that remains the same every morning. Sometimes the best thing is my dog licking my nose to say good morning, sometimes it’s seeing my daughter asleep in those last peaceful moments before I have to wake her and she starts being a cranky “tweenager”, and sometimes it’s the first breath of fresh air on a lovely day. When I’ve got nothin’ else, a good bagel can sometimes do it for me. 🙂
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What kind of dog?
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She’s a random white mutt that wandered into my husband’s office building one day, and ended up coming home with him (what a sucker!). Could be a mix of Maltese and poodle, or something of that ilk. She likes watching Gone With the Wind with me when it’s on TV. I have evidence:
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That’s a hoot! I wonder if she’d give the same attention to Ishtar.
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As usual, Steve, wonderful stuff from you. I envy you your specific memories.
My only precocious-child-centered sort-of-waking-up story is when the elder was about 2 1/2 and learning new words a mile a minute. One day he was eating his toast and he announced that he had made a triangle. Pretty decent for a toddler. But then, he took another bite or two and announced that he had made a trapezoid. And he had. We did have a sorting box that included a trapezoid and his father was a math teacher but I still think that’s pretty good.
That was the story that my wasband told at elder son’s wedding reception. I’m not sure how it related but as soon as he started, I knew that was the one he was going to tell.
Currently sans partner, pets or progeny, I guess I get up for the glorious sun that often flows in through my windows. I work from home most of the time so, on work days, I sleep until 8:29 and start work at 8:30 (not bad, eh?) Things like coffee/tea and breakfast are spread out through the morning when I figure that those in the office are communing around the water cooler.
LIke Jacque, I envy Anna’s snuggle time with her daughter. I love that she’s got a quota that HAS to be met.
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I’m soaking up as much snuggle time as I can now – and do not begrudge her the time one iota. I can tell when it’s been an especially tough week for her ‘cuz she’ll ask if she can come find me when she wakes up on Saturday morning for a little more lap time (usually I get to sleep in on Saturdays, my one day to try to catch up a bit on sleep).
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My daughter’s in the terrible tweens now, but still likes a cuddle on occasion, or sleeping in my room when her dad’s away on a business trip. I’m enjoying it while it lasts! 🙂
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I have a question for you, Lisa. Would you mind writing me? mnstorytelr(at)comcast.net
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Greetings! We never had pets and my teenage boys aren’t cuddlers (although I do enjoy morning hugs from them); but I do enjoy fresh, cool morning air and colorful sunrises. I’m not normally a coffee drinker, but with a 40-minute drive and rather mind-numbing work, I have cafe au lait (as the French call it) when I get to work to perk me up for the morning. Strong coffee with LOTS of cream and sugar — don’t like the taste of coffee.
Wonderful blog, Steve — I vaguely remember the same sort of trials as a parent of young children. One instance which probably jaded my oldest son for life was when he was about 10 or so. He finally figured out the Santa Claus thing and asked me point blank if I was playing Santa Claus. I answered, and he replied with the gravest feeling of being hurt — “I suppose there’s no Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy either?” He was deeply hurt, felt betrayed and that we had lied to him, and he was angry for weeks. It was heartbreaking as a parent. Ben took it all in stride and played along as long as he continued getting presents. it’s a difficult moment. I remember talking to him a bit later that Santa was based on an actual person from long ago who gave presents to children in his town and that he represented the giving spirit in all of us; and he eventually came around.
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Well, good evening to you all 🙂 My favorite part of waking up is the fact that my dog doesn’t get up until he hears the alarm. As soon as he hears it go off, he’s sniffing in my face, trying to get me to wake up. I definitely don’t oversleep anymore. This can get kind of annoying on weekends, when we don’t have to be up, but I get more done by getting up early.
Wonderful blog Steve. I don’t think my parents ever tried to instill the cynicism in us, it was there to begin with. Though I have to say, I’m less cynical now then I was even a month ago. Shows what finally getting a job (after being unemployed for a year) will do for you 🙂
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You used to be in Michigan! (Right?) I was wondering about you.
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Yeah, then I was in MN and now I’m in WI. Lots of moving.
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welcome back, where in wisc and whats the job? congrats and glad to hear the little dog is still with you. the landlord determined the perameters and you lucked out and got one you like within the landlords perameters to continue on in you life with.
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We’ve missed you. I hope you check in more often!
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Welcome back, Alanna! And congratulations on getting the job.
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Welcome (back), Alanna!
If your dog won’t get up ’til the alarm goes off, couldn’t you set the alarm for later on the weekend? It would probably drive his internal clock crazy.
I can remember lying very still in the mornings so that dogs I owned or for whom I was dog-sitting wouldn’t realize I was awake. I took care of a couple of dogs who had become deaf. Between deafness and age, they would stay abed for a good long time.
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Thanks everyone! It’s great to be back! I’m now working for WisDOT out of the Superior office. I’m still up north and by the lake, so I’m happy 🙂
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I remember that commercial as “The best part of waking up…” which is different than getting up. The best part of waking up is inventorying the dreams you can still pin down when consciousness returns. That and hearing the purr of a cat snuggled up to your ear.
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