Baby Steps
From time to time the buck as they say stops with you. Of course we’d all rather it didn’t, instead opting to move from under the heavy gaze of responsibility to blame-shifting. Now blame-shifting is an acquired art although children learn it with stunning alacrity right out of nappies it would seem!
I had the occasion to see a two year old blame a sleeping pussycat for pulling a plate of breakfast cereal off the table after tugging on the tablecloth and theirs was not so much a diversionary tactic but an effort first of all to get over the fright of the crashing plate and secondly to recognise at some cognitive level that the action had a consequence.
When his mother came sprinting from the kitchen to the dining room (to the crime scene) somewhere in this child’s developmental psyche arose the possibly of shifting the blame of his folly to an innocent catnapper. They couldn’t have explained this scene in a month of Sundays in Human Development 101. It would have just seemed too unbelievable.
Blame-shifting for this child was as simple as pointing his finger to an obviously deep in sleep pussycat. There were no damning words, just the pointing finger, the feigned accusing look at the pussycat and then back to his mother. Adults have a funny way of connecting the dots when it comes to their children. And this mother was no different.
Her profligate connection of the dots saw the pussycat whipped up from it’s resting place and shoo-ed unceremoniously outdoors for the half-term of one of its natural born lives. I suppose there was that consolation. That made eight and a half others it still had to barter with. Me, I was still incredulous! Wouldn’t you be?
“Kits, cats, sacks and wives, how many went to St Ives?” Blame-shifters come in so many shapes and sizes, some start young, some aren’t even out of nappies. The thing about being an adult is that we have in our favour the learned ability to think concrete thoughts. I dobbed in the nappied one. Luckily for me, my friend has a great sense of humour (and justice) and a confused pussycat was apologetically reinstated.
Blame-shifters get it. When the nappied two year old saw the return of the pussycat, he got that he’d been sprung! We all did. His tact then was to smile broadly and no-one I know could have possibly reprimanded those dimpled cheeks, infectious childsome giggle and child crawling into your lap.
Hmmm!!! When was the last time you think you got taken for a ride by an under one-footer? Me? Just yesterday morning!
