One way I am easily able to drive my hard-working beloved life partner crazy is by making a statement along the lines of, "Of course, [the son] and I aren't really two separate people." She finds this sentiment to be a sign of enmeshment and lack of boundaries, which does often cause parents to inflict their own problems onto the new generation. Note that every stay at home parent I've brought this up with has the same story to say about their working partner; gotta love them but they just live in some other world.
I just can't see the toddler, even as he is separate enough to choose an object to throw at me, climb the stairs by himself, throw it in my general direction (without hitting me, as I think he could were he so inclined), and then climb back down the stairs to continue sulking (that the TV was turned off by me), as completely separate from me. He has feelings separate from me, but we seem to share general levels of tension and relaxation. He has his food preferences separate from me, but we are often of one mind about eating. He has his wild stories to tell, but the conversations ramble back and forth between us so smoothly that there's not a clear difference between helping him finding the words he's looking for and sharing some funny twist that I just thought of and laughing at one of the fresh insights I enjoy from his mouth and mind.
He's three now, and so is much more separate. When he was fifteen months, we were not two. We were one integrated human system, with two brains but one reality indivisible. I'd know far before it would happen if he was thinking of running far from me or if he was sleepy (or if he was sleepy and yet unable to fall asleep). During those days, we'd nap together, eat together, walk together, and interact for endless hours together. Of course we knew each other well.
And there is a certain skill in interpreting body language and emotional states that being a parent has really sharpened for me. I was a computer programmer, and a sort "just IM me" kind of person, always looking at the detailed words that were uttered, separate from any sort of human context. Inconveniently, however, babies aren't born speaking. Nor even with much ability to analytically assess what is bugging them. They just cry like hell when they need to. Even a crinkly sad face is highly motivating to a parent. But the informational content of the uttered words is too low. You have to start looking, with your eye. And listening with your ears, not your speech-processing centers. Luckily, we turn out to be biologically adapted to understanding our young. And it turns out that after a few weeks (or is it months? I forgot) you can tell the difference between "I'm tired" yelling and "what a day!" yelling and "food! Now!" yelling. Even as they get some speech, they aren't really in the "fact" based community, so you end up having to watch for the rubbed eyes and the clock. You practice, you serve meals that are ignored, you have babies falling asleep while driving to the class, you have playdates that have multiple instances of hitting.
You keep watching, and at some point you realize that you know that your kid is feeling a bit feisty and is going to want to run across the street without holding hands. And you know precisely which mornings you can leave the house without food and which mornings you'll regret leaving without that snack (this isn't really mystical, just things like some weeks they eat 8 meals a day and some weeks they eat like a bird; however it is, there you are and you know it well). You start to catch yourself accepting or rejecting offers for the child because the answer to the question is as obvious as the sun shining in the sky, as obvious as your own hunger or fatigue. You can stand talking to an adult, and reach down with your hands to prevent a shove in just the same way you catch yourself about to trip (umm, at least you can do that 90% of the time).
You get to watch them when they realize they don't have to tell you the truth, that it's a choice, and you see just how they alter their voice, and how they stand a bit askew. (At that time, you feel their pleasure with the cleverness of their story and their courage at choosing to lie.) When, years later, they try the lying with such greater verbal sophistication, the voice and the stance are still as loud to you as your own nervousness when you lie (yes, it's true, I do sometimes lie; no, it doesn't work out well).
So the data you have about these small people is much closer to the data you have about yourself. Not complete data, but much more intimate than with people you meet as adults.
And the parent and child are not two in a more dynamic fashion as well. There is a constant flow of attention, of moods spreading and changing. Karen Miller has a lovely statement that the ironclad rule for raising good kids is to be good. And there's nothing that will discourage flexibility in toddlers more quickly than being inflexible. Hang on to your way, and this other way rears up. It's not like suffering alone with your inflexibility, it's like suffering with a giant fun-house mirror of your own inflexibility. But it's not like being with adults, because you can just laugh and throw up your hands and say some new thing like, "Can I help you somehow?" or offer one minute before the dreaded diaper change, or some open response. Sometimes merely enjoying a slow breath and then repeating the exact same words is enough. And voila, a flexible child appears, ready, no eager and excited, to work together. Errors are never so quickly left behind (if never so frequently stumbled into).
--Chris, who has thoroughly lost perspective, and is standing in amongst the weeds (and sees a wondrously balanced ecosystem that is ancient, marvelous, and of this very moment).
