A
limit to jokes
My
husband often laughs and plays with our three-year-old
child and it’s very good to see them together.
At times though, our child gets angry when his dad picks
on him up with nicknames or jokes. What’s the
limit when it comes to jokes in such a situation?
Liza P.
Dear caring mother Liza, thank you for the question
because it’s also an occasion to speak about the
meaning of laughter for one's child.
A
limit to jokes. I would, first of all, avoid jokes that
mock one's own child, because it’s a kind of violence
that the child doesn't understand yet, for it makes
him feel dependent on the power of an adult and lowers
his self-esteem.
Instead,
there’s a different meaning to laughing and playing
together with one's child, which I would like to suggest.
To play means “to penetrate in his (the child’s)
realty, to enter his world, to day-dream and to try
to be immersed in his world.” To laugh also has
repercussions for physical and psychic health. According
to researchers, in fact, laughter is a good exercise
for relaxing because it loosens the tensions of the
diaphragm, avoiding a lot of crying in the child.
Laughter
then, for one's child, represents the joy of being with
someone like his dad who loves him and enters into his
world. The child laughs because the other person is
able to enter his world and shares his emotions. It
is a meeting of minds and feelings with the other person.
Then
it is amusing for him to see the “giant papa”
who lowers himself down and plays with him, entering
into the fantastic world of the child, and establishing
a relationship with him.
The
father in this way learns to relive his own childhood,
to become reconciled with his past, to experience moments
lived in freedom, without any other objective if not
that gift of self which is the essence of relationship.
It is for this reason that our children offer us the
occasion to grow in our own humanity. With their smiles
and their innocence, they disarm us, making us feel
children of a Father who probably smiles at His children.
Ezio
Aceti
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You're right about being careful not to fall into a
simplistic kind of optimism far removed from reality.
I thank you for your encouragement to reflection. Naturally,
I’m inclined to be pessimistic and critical. Or
at least I was such a person before. Life experiences
and facts, however, have made me understood that it
doesn't help much to look at others or reality through
my own eyes, that is very critically, but to try to
see things or people in greater depth, and go beyond
first appearance more in depth, and beyond first appearance.