Barbarian in the bedroom

[muninnhuginn]

Went into Looby Loo's bedroom this morning to pick out her clothes. She'd already half opened the curtains and pulled back her duvet. Scattered across the exposed sheet were the remains of an entire page of one of her books--torn and comprehensively shredded. I could have wept: tears did actually form. I gathered her clothes and went back downstairs to where she was eating her breakfast. I didn't shout. I didn't even scold her. I just explained how sad and upset I was that she'd destroyed part of one of her books, one I'd carefully chosen for her, which we'd had to earn the money to buy, which I probably couldn't mend or replace.

When I checked later I found the other two mauled volumes: one a much-loved and much mended board book that I might conceivably be able to fix again (and there's no text missing, the damage being only to the front cover), the other also missing at least one page. I've not opened either of the two paper books to asses the damage, but the confetti I gathered from the bed doesn't bode well for repairs.

I keep telling myself it's not malicious, that she simply doesn't---and doesn't yet have the intellectual and emotional capacity to--understand the hurt she's caused. I feel, maybe, a little resentful that she can afford to do this to her possessions, because she has so many and always gets more, especially books. It's not that she can't yet understand the value of things, the emotional as well as financial investment, that goes into her possessions. Her genuine, unasked for, gratitude when the piano arrived means she knows its importance. Her thanks out of the blue for clothes I've made for her, when I don't particularly expect thanks (making her clothes is as much an indulgence I grant myself as a way of showing her my love), means she understands the care people put into providing her with nice things. She simply hasn't included books in that category of things that are special and should be treasured and looked after properly. Perhaps, although she feels and understands gratitude, she hasn't yet learned to comprehend ingratitude.

Part of the problem is the very objects themselves. If if were, say, jigsaws or dolls, I'd simply not get her any more until I was certain she would look after them. She wouldn't suffer educationally or developmentally and she might learn her lesson. But I can't, and won't, take her books away, refuse to let her have more. Their very importance to her development precludes that, regardless of the near iconic status in which I hold them. We have idols to worship here: they're rectangular and made of wood pulp and iron gall.

I don't know what the solution is. I can move the bookcase further from her bed (we really do have no more space to put the bookcase elsewhere in the house): she tends not to get out of her bed at all once in it. I could take away those books of mine that we currently have in her room because I don't trust her with them (even the book of fairy tales that still has its dust jacket complete with tiny nibbled hole partway down the spine). If it happens again (and since it's happened before in lesser ways I can assume it'll happen again) after her birthday, I could stop her pocket money until she's saved up for a replacement.

What I can't do is explain that she's attacking the thing that I hold most dear. I can't get her to understand that over the course of my life, even since she was born, there have been periods of time when only the contents of certain books have kept me away from the knife or the pills or the river. She's not old enough to understand that. She may never have that kind of relationship with words and literature: that may remain a closed book. Her centre, her passion, may simply be elsewhere.

She went off to school, after a worse than normal battle over the usual things (getting dressed, having her hair brushed...), without a single cuddle from me.

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

I don't know how old Looby Loo is, but I was pretty destructive of books for quite a while - I mean, right up to the point when the balance tipped over and most of the books I acquired started being books I bought for myself, rather than books that were given to me.

I am still a carnal rather than a courtly lover of books, but I shudder when I think how I used to treat the poor things.

[muninnhuginn]

I'm not perfect myself--the tooth marks on the book of fairy tales are mine, I remember doing them, tho' I also remember consciously stopping myself doing it. I just put pencil marks in the margins of my books nowadays and fold over the corners of pages.

She's not quite five and generally quite mature in her behaviour. I'm half inclined to put thw whole thing down to her actually really liking books (which she does) and it being some sort of attempt to consume them physically because she can't quite read them herself yet. Or just the best-loved teddy bear being the most worn and battered. It's only her books: school's books and the books we borrow from the library are not included in this (crosses fingers).

It's maybe part of a pattern of other behaviour (probably down to starting school--the process rather than the influence of any particular school) that includes other new--and deliberate--misbehaviours and disrespect (she's not spat in my face before today, for instance).