Kids Break Stuff

I have read enough Buddhist philosophy to know that I would make a terrible Buddhist.

Here is why, in a nutshell: I love stuff.  I am really attached to it.  I have an almost fetishistic attachment to lamps, chairs, and teacups, and I mean that in the anthropological sense. I have stopped accumulating chairs, and even lamps out of respect for my family, but I do allow myself to acquire the occasional teacup. The other day my two year old was playing with a couple of these irresistible little curiosities and I had this moment of panic/attachment/fear.  She would break it, then she would be hurt, and I would not longer have it and the world would end! I stopped myself from screaming.  I breathed through my nostrils like the dedicated yogi that I am not, and a thought popped into my head.

Once upon a time children played with china tea sets of their very own.

I am an evolved, adaptive, free ranging hipster mom, so I of course have to assume that there is some magical lesson to be learned from the fairy land that we have created from the past. China tea sets break. China tea sets teach children to be careful with their things.  They teach them small, early lessons in taking care of the things we care about.  Children learn that broken things can be fixed, and if they can’t be fixed, they learn to deal with the consequences and their feelings about it.

Ok, so I may be attaching WAY too much significance to a tea cup. It is just a little thing. It might not be the difference between my daughter learning to deal with grief, loss, and respect or having to eat her feelings, but maybe it is.  So I am letting her play with my hoard of teacups. If one breaks we will try our best to mend it, and if we can’t we will try our best to let it go.

#parenting #teacups #toddler