Before Goodness & White Chocolate
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Toddler and I went on a date last week. She had been sick the night before with a whopping 104 fever, but miraculously woke up the next morning with no fever at all. To be safe, I kept her home from school. I emailed her Preschool teacher and said she’d be home that day and her teacher reminded me that it was Class Picture Day. Of course.
Toddler’s teacher very kindly offered that I could bring my girl in just for the fifteen minute picture slot and then whisk her away again. And so. I got Toddler spiffed up and we went to join the rest of her buddies for their group shot in the school gym. Turns out one of Toddler’s friends was also sick and she and her mom made a cameo just for pictures too. So, this fellow mom and I hung back and watched as our coiffed creatures lined up and smiled big like good little girls and boys.
Good.
This mom, a friend of mine, and I chatted about how much we like Preschool. About how our kids’ class in particular is made up of really a wonderful and diverse group of children. We didn’t have much time to talk because pictures were over quickly and our sickly (or not-so-sickly) girls bounded back to us. Toddler was sad to leave for the day. She wanted to stay and play, but I insisted that it was important that we not get her friends sick. I promised her we could have a Mommy day, that I would take her to lunch at a diner. I sweetened the deal by offering a pajama-shopping trip to the Gap. Done.
At lunch, while we waited for her grilled cheese and my soup, I told her that I had talked to her friend’s mommy and that we decided that we really love her class, that it is made up of a bunch of really good kids.
Good.
“Don’t you think there are so many really good kids in your class?”
Toddler squinted her eyes and looked at me dubiously.
“What?” I asked.
“Well,” she said and paused. “Some of the kids do not return their library books on time. And that is not good.”
I smiled. Oh, how I smiled. Our lunch arrived.
“No, sweetie. That’s not good. It’s important to return library books on time so other kids can take them out. But they are still good kids.”
Toddler had left goodness and moved on to her fries, but I was left thinking about this. Goodness. Badness. When do we learn these concepts? What was life be like before we become entrenched in these moral dichotomies? Maybe Toddler, sweet girl of mine, is on to something important: Maybe there aren’t good people and bad people. Just people who do good things and bad things.
Alas. I didn’t lose myself for too long in this fit of semantic distraction. We ate and talked some more. For some reason, I mentioned white chocolate. Toddler’s eyes lit up and her smile widened.
“What?” I asked.
“Chocolate is NOT white, Mommy!”
“Yes, babe. Some chocolate is. I promise.”
She giggled. And so, after I scarfed the majority of her grilled cheese and several of her fries, we paid our check. After finding some ravishing bear claw slippers at the Gap, I took Toddler to a local chocolatier. I scanned the offerings behind the glass and there they were. Tiny blocks of white chocolate decorated with bright red ladybugs. I bought two.
I handed her one. “See?” I said as she bit in.
Her eyes, big and blue and amazing, said it all. Yum.
And then we walked home holding hands. And something incredible or maybe just ordinary occurred to me: Once upon a time, years ago, I didn’t know what goodness and white chocolate were. Once upon a time, I was so innocent.
Sometimes, just sometimes, I wish I could go back there, to the place before good and bad, to the world where chocolate is simple and brown. A place without so many categories and complexities. I would go if I could. Just to visit.
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Do you ever long for the innocence of youth, for a purer time when there was still so much to learn and discover? Do you believe in goodness and badness (of people, of actions)? Do you think as a culture we are consciously or unconsciously too reliant on evaluative categories of good and bad? Are you a fan of white chocolate?
Everyone struggles and...
I’m with Toddler. Chocolate is not white! (Although I used to be a fan, until I started eating more dark chocolate, and now even milk chocolate tastes fake to me, let alone white!)
I do think that culturally it is too easy for us to look at a person and put him or her into a box – all good or all bad, without taking into account circumstances, former actions, or the fact that we may know nothing at all about why the person is doing that which looks “bad” or “good” to us. Is someone who donates lots of time and money to charities still a “good person” if he or she is only doing it to look impressive to others? Is someone who lashes out with angry words still “bad” if he or she has never heard a kind word from another person and doesn’t know any other way to communicate?
I do love the reminders from children to stop placing people in overly-simplistic categories, and just take each action, each moment, each person, as he or she is.
I think there is a part of us that wishes we could go back to that innocent time when chocolate is simple and brown
It sounds like a special day you shared with toddler.
I love your stories about your days with your girls and I know they will love looking back and reading them. I have no problem with you asking toddler about the children the good and the bad but you made a big mistake…white chocolate isn’t technically chocolate
It contains no cocoa. Another dichotomy, equally important.
I do have days where I wish I could back. A time before deadlines, before responsibility, before everything became adult-like and rigid. There are indeed moments where I long for the freedom and optimism of youth.
Although we can’t physically go back to our youth, I think we have moments where we can revisit youth through children. I do not have children of my own, but I do have numerous nieces and nephews. Through them I’m able to catch glimpses of all that is new, exciting, amazing, etc. I hope someday to have my own children so I can experience more of these moment like you and other moms. I can’t help but smile at the possibility.
Sounds like a fun day out with your toddler. I love when I’m just with one of my kids and we can go out without me worrying about both of them fighting. They act so good (most of the time) when it’s just a one-on-one.
I think adults teach children about the concepts of good and bad. Without that knowledge, they don’t know the difference.
Such good food for thought. People. All just people making some good choices, some bad. Yes. This is what it is, Aidan. So so true–and something good for me to remember.
Let me first address white chocolate, as this brings back memories of when I was a child. When I was about your daughter’s age I had an allergy to chocolate. but was allowed white chocolate because as we all know it does not contain any cocoa properties and is not technically chocolate at all. So while everyone devoured their chocolate Easter eggs, I was the only one in kindergarten to share her white chocolate bunny, trying to smugly inform everyone that white chocolate was more elegant and less common than the ordinary dark kind (words my mother used but I really wasn’t convinced even then.) Many, many years later and no longer allergic, I am a chocoholic and it must be dark chocolate at that! Even at 4, I knew that ordinary chocolate was not that simple; there was dark, white and that in-between kind.
You ask if we ever wish to go back to a state of innocence, to that “place before good and bad”, and I must say I find this definition intriguing.
Good and bad is what we begin to define and establish for our children from the moment we say “don’t do that, don’t touch that, we mustn’t say that, say please, say thank you etc”. We are doing this even when we are still calculating their age in months. Right and wrong is something we pride ourselves as parents in teaching our children, and by the time they start pre-school, this concept is already ingrained. Yet having a knowledge of right and wrong does not necessarily mean a loss of innocence.
I cannot remember a time from my childhood where I was not aware of a ‘good’ way to act and a ‘bad’ way and that we should always choose to be good, even though I didn’t always quite understand why sometimes I just did the ‘bad thing’, like take a toy from my sister without asking first.
I do however, remember being innocent and thinking that no one could really harm another person, that all grown-ups protect children and that if there was something horrific that happened then it was an accident, like the car accidents where people were injured, or being so sick that doctors couldn’t fix you. The ‘bad’ that occurred was out of our control.
But then you begin to learn about wars waging in the world, of the perils of not talking to strangers, of children not having enough to eat or living without parents to look after them, etc. and then the world becomes a little less innocent.
What I do fondly remember is that ‘innocent’ world if you will, where there were no prejudices, where we looked at others with no judgment, where we simply accepted a warm smile and delivered as much so openly. Watching my preschooler take the hand of his buddy and hold it without any ill thought as he leads him to play and then giving him a hug when it is time to say good bye, that to me is a place of innocence. By the time they enter First Grade, some of this is sadly lost. Sentiments of this vanished state seem to re-surface when we have little ones of our own and can once again treasure the simplicity of just enjoying chocolate, whether it’s brown or white.