Children see magic because they look for it. ~ Christopher Moore

Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: My Little Friends

I love little kids, particularly toddlers. And I really wish that in our society expressing that thought as an unmarried man didn’t lead a lot of people to make unsavory assumptions about you. I love how free children are, how the world hasn’t weighed them down yet, how their imaginations run free and and they can so easily experience joy when they play. My jobs have always been highly stressful, when you manage people that’s just the way things go. So I’ve always been someone who looks for ways to escape each day from that madness and try and keep my stress levels down. About twenty years ago there was a playground in a park across from campus, so I would take a sandwich and go eat lunch in the park and watch the little kids go nuts, it was a great stress break. One day a police officer approached me and said that a parent had called in a complain that I was stalking the little children and couldn’t be in the park. I agreed to leave, but not before pointing out to him that he had zero grounds to make the request, but the last thing I wanted to do was let that parent pump those fears into their child. A lot of this comes from the child abduction scares and Satanic panics of the 80’s. If you listened to the media and various advocacy groups, thousands of children were being abducted weekly by strangers, secret groups at day care centers were conducting Satanic rituals on children. ALL OF IT, was bullshit. There is a great CBC Podcast on the Satanic Panic you should check out. The fact is, stranger abductions are pretty rare, and yes, there are monsters out there, but not nearly as many as people believe. The fact is, the overwhelming majority of child abductions are done by parents in custody disputes.

So, as much as I like munchkins I very much limit and control how I interact with them, primarily to limit the fears and reactions of their parents. And I’m lucky in my job, part of my responsibility is to oversee our child development lab school. As a play based program I get to occasionally pop-in and go crazy on the playground with my little friends. Shortly before my surgery I had one day where I made the mistake of catching a ball one through me, it immediately turned into a smash the dean dodgeball attack, it was wonderful. I’m grateful to our staff at the center, they do a wonderful job with our kids and I’m always so proud to see the development that the munchkins achieve.

I also have several faculty who have small children who are my friends. I’ve talked about the Tiny Dean recently and showed the card she made me, today I have another to display, this one is a bit different. This little friend is very smart, but also very much a little wise-ass and I got this card delivered to me yesterday. Her mom told me she’s been very concerned about me and my surgery.

I love my little friends, children are such a gift and that amazing toddler time passes quickly. I was lucky to spend a chuck of that time with my niece Rooney while I rehabbed an injured knee, she’s pictured above when we were playing ninjas together.

Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane