I ain't your punkin

Quote of the day:

We sit at our screens tapping our keyboards, some half a world away, and we matter to each other. We listen and tell our stories, share our pleasures and concerns, teach and learn, laugh and love and cry - the last sometimes in sorrow and others, as I did yesterday, in joy. Ronni Bennett

One of the Directors of a child care center in Texas recently told me that she used to call children, "Pumpkin" and other such pet names, until one day four year old Chanede looked her straight in the eye and said indignantly, "I ain't your punkin!"

I have always been averse to treating children like they are cute little pets, feeding their minds with bunnies and balloons, care bears and silly, smiling animals, as if that is all their brains will understand. "Call children by their real names," I always tell teachers, "Don't trivialize children. When they run up to tell you a story don't say: 'How sweet or funny' or laugh out loud at their 'cuteness.' Share real art, challenging and intellectual ideas with children and treat them with respect, as you would a guest in your house." Included in my teachings is to remind people to call children by their names. Indeed, I take great pains to find out how all people like to be addressed, and to pronounce their names exactly as they would like. "Is it Katherine or Kate, Rebbecca or Bekah, Elizabeth, Meg or Beth, Robert or Bob or maybe Rob, Daniel, Danny or Dan. Thomas or Tom, James or Jim, Jenny or Nian?"

What's in a name? When I was a child I loved it when my father would call me Tamarika. It felt soft, gentle, dear and special. It came from his culture that I yearned to be a part of. He would talk to my step mother in Ladino a language I could not understand. I have often wondered why he did not teach me Ladino and why I never sought to learn it either. However, as he would say "Tamarika," I would immediately feel connected to something that felt deep and important to my roots, his roots, a place where I, too, could belong for a moment. I would beam from somewhere deep inside myself and feel a pleasurable gurgle in my throat, almost like a purr.

Pleasure is such a personal, associative feeling. As punkin did not do it for Chanede, Tamarika surely felt good to me.

I still think it is a good thing to call children by their names. If you really, really feel a great urge to use an endearment term of your own choosing, just ask children for their permission first, that's all. Children know what they want. They will tell you, if you have the time to hear.

Comments

[Milt]

One of today's problems, we do not take time to really listen, or hear.

[kimbofo]

This made me laugh out loud! I can just imagine that kid being mighty annoyed - and rightly so!

As a kid I remember having to draw the line at adults calling me Kimmy or Kimberley - my name is just Kim and the only permitted adaption I'd allow was 'Kimbo' and even then I was picky about who could use it.

[goldenlucyd]

Hi Tamar.
I really enjoyed this post. Names confer much more than identity. And sometimes it ain't good! Got me to thinking about the names we choose---like our blog names and I wonder then if we aspire to "fit" into them. (Or fear to.) I know I aspire to at least moments of "lucydity."
And you Tamrarika. Isn't it a bit comforting to be the loving and loveable girl you father adored? Such fun to muse...Thanks for the inspiration. At my age it's often hard to get the muse lit.
love,
The Lucyd One

[Chancy]

Tamar

As I read your post I found myself saying hurrah for your excellent understanding of children and their need for recognition. Using a child's name is important to them in establishing their sense of who they are in this world. All of us like to be called by our names.

I would especially like to thank you for using the words "child and children" instead of the term that is so much in vogue these days; "KIDS". I want to yell at the TV everytime I hear that term. I think the distaste must go back to my own childhood. I can remember my mother saying " A kid is a little GOAT"

Chancy

www.driftwoodinspiration.blogspot.com

[Tamar]

Chancy, I agree. I really do not like the term "kids." I struggle with it because while I know it is part of the cultural slang, "child" and "children" seem more respectful to me.

Lucyd, I have long wondered about why people choose the names they do for their blogs. I think names are deeply meaningful to people - their own names, family ones, names of books, movies, blogs, articles. A lot of personal, professionl, political, symbolic, traditional, making a stand kinds of "stuff" go into the names we choose. On the Daddy-loveable note, I have a really hard time ever feeling loveable ... am not sure what it feels like, actually, but I surely liked it when he called me "Tamarika." I think mostly because it meant that for that moment I belonged to his culture - his Sephardic roots.

Ah Kim - hence "kimbofo?" How interesting this all is.

Yes, Milt, I agree. Just to stop a minute, wait ... and listen, really listen ...