Of Bears and Children

Years ago my brother worked for a high-end photographic retailer that catered to professionals and amateurs alike. He did this to pay his bills and have access to equipment for his own photography. One of the items they carried was a travelling case for photo gear. The case was built of hardened steel with strapping reinforcements and was for all intents and purposes, indestructible. Inside were soft, foam niches where very expensive equipment would fit snugly and remain protected. It was the kind of thing one could imagine a National Geographic photographer using on expedition to very bad places. The company that produced the case believed in its product and backed it up with a lifetime guarantee. They swore your gear would be protected from anything you could throw at it and included the example of being dropped out of an airplane, in which case, if anything within was damaged the items would gladly be replaced. Both the case and its promise of security were rock solid. There were, however, two caveats to the guarantee; conditions that, no doubt, were required by their policy underwriters and for which no recompense would be provided . The first was in the case of a bear attack. The second, clearly stated on the box itself, was in the case of children under five. They were not joking.

There is something both frightening and awe-inspiring about a toddler's ability to dismantle or destroy anything they come across. It isn't just the occasional magic marker incident or broken objet. No, it's the things they can do that you never imagined possible before having kids. Innate curiousity, total disregard for form or function and tiny hands must be the ideal conjugation for perfect annhilation.

Our son at the age of two dismantled a rocking chair. Held together with classic mortice work, the vintage rocker had been a gift from me to my wife before the boy was born. In beat up condition when I purchased it, I had it repaired and restained. It sits at the end of the boy's bed and has been used to rock him to sleep too many times to count. One afternoon I was delivering a load of clean clothes to his dresser and when I entered his room both arms of the chair and their respective posts were sitting in the chair's seat. I asked the boy what had happened and he told me, without guilt, remorse, or fear, "Oh, I break it." "How?!" "I pull," he said, patronizingly. No further explanation. I'm still baffled. Ultimately, I fixed the chair, the damage wasn't substantial; it had only been dismantled. But I watch him like a hawk.

The remains of safety latches for our cabinets and drawers stand witness to his destructive powers and dedicated perseverance. Very few exist in their original form, either utterly destroyed or tinkered into uselessness by his intrepid ways. He once took a Tivo remote apart in a way that took me two days to repair and he did this in less than two minutes. That too, was baffling. He does these things with no apparent tools other than his own hands and leaves no doubt in my mind of the instinctive nature of Homo Faber.

He seems, thankfully, to be outgrowing this phase, or at least developing a conscience as regards that which is not his to destroy. But every now and then, when something interests him, you can see the wheels turning, which is the cue to put the item in a safe place; safe, that is, until he figures out how to access it. I love my kid but it makes me wonder about our choice for spawned housemates. At least with a bear you can dart it and return it to the wild.