Toddler lessons: Projection makes perception 🧸

Jack complains that Cecilia wants to steal a toy from his hands. I look at him quizzically, and he turns to ask her, “Bubba girl, do you want to rip this toy from my hands?”, to which she replies “yaaaaa”. “See!” Jack yelps, “she does want to rip this from my hands!”.

Cecilia, aka Bubba girl, is linguistically advanced for her age: She can successfully string two words together in a language only decipherable by my family. This is an important detail in the story because sometimes she utters sounds that are pleasing to her, and pleasing to us, or any number of motivations entirely orthogonal to answering a question she’s been asked.

“Ciça”, I say to her, “do you really want to rip that from jack’s hands?” “Naaaaa” she replies. Frantic, Jack implores her, “Bubba girl, do you want to rip this from my hands?” Now it looks as if he’s requesting, and she’s more than happy to oblige.

Did she want to rip the toy from his hands in the first place, as he thought? Or did he ask her to?

How often do we think reality is a certain way, when actually we’re asking it to be that way? How often do we enter a conversation assuming the other person is ready to attack our view—and in our defensiveness guarantee attack? Say “I need space”—then complain that no one crosses the distance we created? Drown people in examples to prevent a misunderstanding we create with the overwhelm of examples? 

(Join the discussion on Uptrust)

With love, Jordan