Fussy logic

I had an interesting conversation with Fred yesterday. He's a fussy kid about certain things - eating, trying new stuff. He gets very stubborn, very insistent that he doesn't or won't like something when he doesn't know that. It's not exactly unique - plenty of kids are 'stubborn', or 'awkward', or 'fussy', or 'controlling'. It struck me though that a better word one could use is that he gets defensive, like he feels he has to defend his world. I put this to him, and it seemed to ring a bell for him. So I asked him what he felt he needed to defend his world from. 'Being controlled by someone else,' he replied.

So it was with some interest that today I read a report about academic attempts to define the family. Sounds a little dry perhaps, but I found it quite the opposite and will be digging deeper into it shortly. One thing that caught my eye was the notion that the concept of the family is a social construct based on ideological and power relationships.

The notion was a feminist notion and the power and ideology were patriarchal. Now, I don't accept that relationships are inevitably about power and trouser-wearing (I used to, but that's another story). For that matter, I don't accept that men are the binary opposite of women and children. However, if you view the family as a power struggle, that'll be your experience of it. And that's where I was reminded of my conversation with Fred.

Fred's been told often enough that I, his mum and his teachers have no interest in bossing him around for its own sake. That actually, the entertainment value of telling him what to do is pretty limited. He's heard that before, but hasn't taken it in. (Pretty common complaint, right?) So he's not really, truly, deeply listening. My automatic reaction of course is to repeat ad nauseam, hoping that one day he finally will listen. But he won't; chances are, he'll figure it out for himself quicker than hear me going on like a stuck record. So what on earth else can I do? It occurs to me that maybe here's a chance to shut up. I could try doing what I want him to do - listen. There's often a lot of mileage in doing what you want others to do.