The other day I was watching a three year old playing a game designed to encourage "co-operation" amongst the players. The basic idea was that you had to roll the die and then, according to whatever colour came up on the die, you could help yourself or help another player take imaginary vegetables out of the vegetable garden on the game board.
It sounded like a great idea. The notice on the box lid said that the game was for children as young as three. The game rules extolled the virtues of teaching children "non-competitive" play from an early age and assured us that kids would find that it was great to learn to help others accomplish a task.
Evidently, three year olds cannot read.
The little girl soon dissolved in a puddle of tears of frustration. Although the rules of the game were patiently explained to her more than once in a way that she could understand, she had no interest in playing the game according to the rules. She wanted to do it her own way. Her own way bore little resemblance to the original game and certainly did not involve
co-operative efforts.
In the end, she could not play the game at all because no one else could figure out how the prechooler was playing the game: she changed the rules and the objectives of the game every five minutes to suit herself. What is more, no one was inclined to stick around and play the game with her. Having to endure the howls of protestation or the game board pieces being hurled around the room in frustration was not much fun for anyone. Instead of blissful co-operation, the little girl found herself in a state of unhappy alienation.
Oh my. The three year old girl is my daughter. I love her to bits. It is sometimes intensely funny and sometimes excruciatingly painful to watch her in her encounters with the real world.
Like the thing about throwing the die. She hasn't quite got it figured out yet that when you throw the die, you don't really know how it is going to end up. That is the fun of a game of chance. But for my daughter at this stage, it is crucial that she control the outcome of the throw of the dice. It's quite funny to watch her hunched up over the little
die, trying to drop it in just such a way that it will turn up the colour that she wants. She glances around with a guilty look to see if anyone will contest her improper actions. She "throws" the die again and again to get the right result, so incapable is she of securing the desired outcome even through cheating.
My daughter understands enough about the laws of physics to know that a die, cast a certain way, only has a certain probability of an intended result. She understands enough about moral laws to know that she is doing something wrong by trying to control the die and alter the course of the game for her own benefit.
What she does not understand yet is the benefit of playing according to the rules. Her definition of happiness is based on being free from rules.
My daughter is a lot like me in many ways. She has the same wispy-curl baby-fine hair as I do. Her hair is wonderfully cute and curly at certain moments, but maddeningly unmanageable most of the time. Our baby pictures look alike. She has my dimples, my allergies, my attention to coherence and detail (Woe is me if we don't find socks and a hat that are colour co-ordinated to match her outfit of the day.)
She is also like me in her expression of a nonconformist tendency. But in this, she is merely showing forth the genetic predisposition of pretty much the entire human race. No one likes to obey rules and always do what they are told is best for them. We all think we have a better way of running our own show. It is just that when you are three, you have fewer layers of social and intellectual sophistication to cover up that fundamental attitude of rebellion and stubborn self-centredness. My child is simply a little more exposed in her internal problems than the rest of us are as adults.
All that being said, I love my little girl to distraction. I wish I could make things easier for her. I wish I could help her to realize that insisting on her own way is ultimately harmful to her. She will be free to enjoy the game and the company of others in the game only when she learns to submit to the rules that have been laid out.
Yes, it is sometimes comical to watch her gyrations and whimsical idiosyncrasies, but more often than not it causes pain to my parent's heart. I wish I could do something to spare her the misery of her self-inflicted tears. It is hard to learn about some of life's inflexible realities. It is hard to grow up. I try to comfort her and to provide some perspective and
stability amidst her whirling words of frustration. More often than not she just cries harder and insists more insistently on her own self-defeating behaviour. Oh dear. Growing up is hard. But being a parent is harder.
I am reminded of what God says about me and about my fundamental internal nature: he calls me a silly sheep who always wants to wander off and put myself in peril. One of God's favourite spokesmen in the New Testament, Paul, also talked about the paradox of freedom. The only way one can find true freedom is through realizing that one has become a bond slave of the one good master, Jesus. I am also reminded that God talks about himself as a father who loves his child intensely. God is depicted as taking a toddler's hands and leading his first faltering steps as he learns to walk only later to be hurt by the child's angry rejection and defiance.
God, with his father's heart, woos me to willingly lay down my insistence on my faulty concept of freedom. I will only be truly free when I am in right relationship with him. That relationship involves a chosen submission and obedience on my part and a loving leadership on his part. God invites me to participate in this daily dance of love. I entered into it for the first time many years ago when I first trusted in Jesus. I found much freedom and release in the movement of the dance. Each day I must choose again to lay down my claims to my own version of things if I am to experience the freedom of the cooperative movement of the dance for that day.
God beckons me to come and join in the fun of the game!
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