Childhood joy: It can't last

The Boston Herald

BEVERLY BECKHAM

There's this little girl, just 13 months old. Her birthday was Valentine's Day, her father tells the woman next to him. She is toddling around the doctor's waiting room totally unconcerned that everyone else is sitting. She races to the TV, stares at it for a minute, then turns away. She picks up a book she finds on a chair, looks at it, then puts it down. She approaches a stranger, meets the stranger's eyes, grins, then runs back to her father who hasn't for a second taken his eyes off her.

She is a tiny thing, a baby, still bald, the blond fuzz on her head barely visible. She wears pink pants and a teal green sweater and a grin that shows off her teeth. Her mother is in the doctor's office because within weeks she will be having another baby. But it's clear the father is totally enthralled with this one.

"She's the first girl in our family," he tells a woman sitting nearby. "I have all brothers. My wife has all brothers. She's the apple of everyone's eye. Her grandparents are crazy about her."

He doesn't have to say any of this. His joy is visible. He never glances at this watch, though he has been waiting here for more than a half hour. He never says, "Come here. Sit still. Can't you stay in one place?" He isn't annoyed.

He allows the child to explore. He gives her freedom. But she doesn't go far. She runs the way babies do, as if she is on a rocking ship, as if invisible hands reach out every now and then to steady her. She runs straight to what intrigues her, pauses, then turns and races back to him. She stares at a glass partition where the receptionists sit, frowns and looks thoughtful. Then a song comes on the TV and she darts toward the music.

"Can you dance for Daddy?" the father says, and she does.

The child has no fear. She's not afraid of her father. She's not afraid of all the strangers in all the chairs. She doesn't expect anyone to hurt her. She doesn't care that everyone in the room is looking at her. She likes it, in fact. She revels in it and the people in the chairs must like it too because everyone is smiling.

In a few years, this same little girl will walk into a room full of people, take a seat, pick up a magazine and act as if she is alone. In a few years, she'll step on an elevator when it's going up and turn scarlet because she meant to go down. In a few years, she'll shake her head if anyone reminds her how unselfconscious she used to be, if anybody remembers how she once danced in a crowded waiting room.

How does this happen, I wonder? What kills a child's spontaneity and innocence and trust and curiosity? How is it possible that creatures who start out so inquisitive and happy can end up so inhibited and sad?

She is a baby and her father is with her and he doesn't say, "Don't talk to strangers." He doesn't tell her that all people aren't nice. He doesn't leap up and grab her and shout, "Don't you go near that window. You might fall.”

There is no danger in this room, no danger of which either the child or the father is aware. There is only love and it is this love that has made her free.

Someday he will sit her down and say that big girls behave in doctors' offices and that big girls don't go bothering strangers and that big girls don't dance in the middle of a room. And he will tell her that all people aren't as nice as her daddy and he will hint that the world can be a dangerous place.

He has to do this because he loves her and because he won't always be with her watching and protecting her. So she will learn, as we all do, to stifle the joy that we're born with, to sit still when we want to run, to listen quietly when we want to shout, to conform when we want to break free.

But if you could just bottle this. If every child could have a father who isn't in a hurry to get back to work, who delights in their being, who knows the exact day his son, his daughter took her first step ("It was two days before Christmas, this father says.") who is like a little kid himself, showing off his prize to strangers, then maybe the joy would linger. And maybe the child in each of us would linger a little longer, too.

And the world would be a gentler place.