There is a slight tinge of psychopathy in my son's response to illness; I'm not saying that my child is a psychopath, but instead I'm suggesting there is just a slightly "skewed" quality to his caretaker behavior.
Spotting his flu-stricken sister, he widens his eyes. "SUSIE!" he shouts. "Susie, are you OK?" (I think, in this moment, if he could gobble popcorn and pull up a chair, as if at the cinema, he would be in heaven.)
I understand the reaction. Yesterday, I watched a neighbor berate a helpless adolescent because a certain local place of business was experiencing issues with its heating. My heart did not swell with empathy; instead, I stared, with fascination, at my neighbor, eager to observe what she might say next.
"Where is Susie?" shouts Josh. "She is sleeping? She is sleeping on the couch?" And he adds, in a thunderous bellow: "We have to BE QUIET! She is sleeping!"
I do not think that this is a time for a long talk about imaginative sympathy. Maybe it's better that my son isn't wringing his hands about Susie. As George Eliot has said, ""If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary life...it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence...."
Better to distract Joshua. We have acquired a new toy; it's a stuffed potato that you can toss back and forth. When you catch the potato, it trumpets out a loud "farting" sound. You have to provide the AAA batteries.
The farting unites the family. "It's so stinky!" says Susie, from her sickbed. "Little poopies everywhere!" And her brother laughs.
At last, we're all on one page.
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