I’m a fairly sympathetic and compassionate person. If my involvement in the theatre has taught me one thing it has been identification with other people’s lives, experiences, circumstances, and pains. I have the great gift of empathy. As such, I’m acutely aware of and susceptible to other people’s pain. Since it is cold season my family has been trying to take extra precautions to stay healthy… but congestion can get to you anyway.
Earlier this week my son was extremely congested. He was having trouble breathing through his nose. He would snort, and sneeze (a good thing!) and have to take breaths while nursing. It was horrible. He was up crying one night and I took him to change his diaper. While he was lying there on the table looking up at me I looked up his nose and saw what was causing my sweet little boy so much trouble. Dried snot unattractively lined his upper lip, large blockages were apparent inside his little nostrils, and he just looked generally miserable because of it. I called my wife and we decided to do something about it!
My wife sleepily put on her glasses and saw the problem. We got out the saline solution to spray up his nose. We got out the rubber “bulb-looking” thing to suck out the blockages inside his nasal cavity. As you can imagine (and may have experienced personally) he did not appreciate these well intentioned actions by his parents to relieve his frustration. Instead he cried: LOUDLY! He physically shook. His face turned red and he acted like (and probably actually felt) like he was being tortured.
Parenthood requires empathy. My wife and I would take turns holding him gently while the other squirted saline solution up his nose. We’d take him for a walk and rub his back between our torture-like help. Yet, at the end of our twenty minute session our son looked at us and smiled: he could breath. A couple of lessons: 1) As a parent you have to be the “bad” guy sometimes (at least by perception) in order to help your child. 2) Empathy is a great gift.