by Maria Popova
Be consistent. Always speak well of his pop. Do not
discourage childish fantasies.
The second volume of Susan Sontag’s diaries, As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980, gave us the celebrated author and thinker’s insights on love, writing,censorship, and aphorisms. However, it was in the first installment, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963 (public library), that the beloved public
intellectual coalesces out of a shaky young woman grappling with her place in
relation to the world and herself — as we’ve already seen in her 1957 list of “rules + duties for being 24″.
Two years later, in September of 1959, Sontag
lists her 10 rules for raising a child. (Their object, Sontag’s son David
Rieff, edited this very volume.) Underpinning them is a subtle but palpable
reverence for the precious gift of “childishness” — something Ted Hughes has spoken to with
such stirring eloquence.
1.
Be consistent.
2.
Don’t
speak about him to others (e.g., tell funny things) in his presence. (Don’t
make him self-conscious.)
3.
Don’t
praise him for something I wouldn’t always accept as good.
4.
Don’t
reprimand him harshly for something he’s been allowed to do.
5.
Daily
routine: eating, homework, bath, teeth, room, story, bed.
6.
Don’t
allow him to monopolize me when I am with other people.
7.
Always
speak well of his pop. (No faces, sighs, impatience, etc.)
8.
Do
not discourage childish fantasies.
9.
Make
him aware that there is a grown-up world that’s none of his business.
10.Don’t assume that what I don’t like to do (bath, hairwash) he won’t like
either.
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