There actually is a special language for talking to kids. Ever wanted to learn it? I shall explain the basics to you. The French version of this language does not allow the imperative, which is replaced by the indicative. You don’t say, “Camille, say goodbye and go to bed,” but, “Camille, you’re saying goodbye and you’re going up to bed.” The most common phrase of all is, “You are calming down.” Or, “We’re calming down,” which is repeated like a mantra – and is normally totally ignored. If the imperative is ever actually used, it’s ineffective. “Sit down” (as opposed to “Let’s sit down”) is repeated over and over again as a sort of refrain. Usually you speak to kids in the present tense, the future quietly being allowed to disappear: “Papa is coming in a moment,” “Tomorrow you are doing your homework.” And as for the past tense, there’s only one form – the present perfect: “Have you cleaned up your room, Melissa?” With children, language resembles a nursery rhyme.
We don’t dumb things down any more with cute words. No more “The little poopsie has cold tootsies” – that’s been banned. It retards the child’s development. She is supposed to leap directly into the real language, that of grown-ups. And you have to speak to the child about everything, no matter what. There’s nothing more ridiculous than these mères de famille who talk a steady stream to their little two-week-old monkeys, who don’t understand a word. “Mama’s going to change your diaper, Kevin, you’ve done a nice big poo-poo. Mama’s going to change your diaper and then we’re going to see Grandma – you remember Grandma in the big house near the station?” This can go on for hours. Some even speak it in public. But you do have to be holding a diaper to do it properly.
When the children are a bit older, you can expect to hear parents saying sugared-over things like, “Cassandra, if you burn the cat’s fur like that, he might die, and you really don’t want him to die, now, do you?” – this, to the wretched little creature while she’s trying to torture the neighbours’ cat (which, fortunately, is capable of looking after itself). Certainly, there are no accompanying slaps or raised voices. You must operate by persuasion. “You have to explain it to them,” preferably by going on your knees on the floor, so as to be at the child’s level – otherwise she might feel looked down upon. The well-intentioned parent will work hard to devise forms of authority unknown when they themselves were young, forms designed to persuade rather than to produce obedience. Interesting that the same kind of thing is going on in business now, where authority has been replaced by dialogue, and dialogue by communication!
The child, for its part, returns tit for tat, treating the adult like an imbecile, speaking in a language that is in keeping with all this. Children’s talk swarms with boring questions, such as “At the swimming pool when you relax, can you make yourself sink without moving?” or “Would you like me to give you a very painful injection in the heart that’ll turn you into a tree?” It took me some years to admit to my kids that I was not interested in replying. You’re not supposed to do that. You can’t say, “Shut up, I’m thinking about something important.” The solution is simple: don’t listen. My kids think I’m just distracted – which is not untrue. When they’re yammering at me, I frequently find myself drifting off into pleasant mental spaces – the books I want to write, vacations on my own with a stranger on a dream island, or simply a night of Beaujolais with some girlfriends. In a word, childfree.
As the children get bigger, things get worse. Their vocabulary becomes sadly limited, their speech choppy and awkward, every sentence broken up with “Fuck!” feelingly uttered. Their use of the word like defies belief: “Like, I was talking on the phone…” or, “Like, I don’t care?” And go, that’s another one: “Like, she goes, I’m gonna kill myself, and, like, I go, Wait till tomorrow, I’m beat.” And cool: “Like, too cool, I saw them and that was, like, awesome?” “It was like, whatever, they, like, throw you in with somebody? You deal, right?” If you met somebody at a dinner party or in a bar who talked like that – would you want to continue the conversation? Child-parent dialogue is insanity. Without relief.