When my child is enraged that they can’t have a bowl of whipped cream and sprinkles in the morning, you might think I’d acknowledge the lost dream of their dessert breakfast, eulogize their very real feelings about this, verbalize their anger, and tell them I understand. But if you attempt this as anyone but late-midlife Keanu Reeves, you’ll see a syrupy waffle get tossed across the table.
I know my child, and I know gentle parenting. In the middle of a tantrum, I can see the thinking behind having the kid engage in mindfulness and in asking them to grapple beyond the meltdown to count out five things they can sense. The floor they can feel under their white-knuckled feet. The scent of blood. The dim white-hot circle they can see in front of their button noses. But they’re only going to meditate on their own tunnel of endocrine fury unless Keanu is the person doing the guiding. I say that with respect for my parenting capabilities, my child, and, most importantly, a man whom time has sanded only smoother, leaving a marble heart with dark black hair.
I’m an okay parent, but I’m no Keanu. I’m more of a dirty sandbox than a Zen garden. Give him a piece of printer paper, and he will find the beauty and peace within it. “How did they do it?” he’ll ask, looking at how thin the edge is between the page’s two sides and admiring the Amazon Prime logo your consumerist child drew in orange marker. Throw a pair of toddler Converse at his head while screeching like a raptor, and he’ll stop to admire the craftsmanship behind the linen upper, which kind of looks like a smile. He’ll say something like, “Look! Each shoe is different—a different feeling for every foot. Wabi-sabi.” And even the most hardened of children will have to admit there is something soothing about that voice, that long knowing face, the cut of that long black coat. Wait, what were they even angry about?
The internet is convinced that a sensory table will solve the eternal parenting problem of how to get kids to do something other than climb on you and headbutt your teeth, but no adult wants to monitor a sensory table, except maybe Hollywood’s own Little Buddha. He’ll take the kid on a guided tour of the watergates, marveling at each bubble and mixing of streams. He’ll pore over the glistening grains of sand, seeing a universe in each in which we all live forever, and it doesn’t matter that there is slime mashed into the couch. You love your kid and are delighted by their art, but only the Chosen One can meet the eighty-fourth handprint tree collage with genuine soul-to-soul recognition.
You’re a tired-ass parent with no one to smooth back your matted coif of dry shampoo or help you see how peaceful your room-temperature coffee is. Until Keanu. He can go palm to palm with you to trace a large breath bubble, speak soothingly to you about your creaky pelvic floor, and listen to you for hours as you whine yourself into a deep state of feeling heard. He can wrap you in his long black coat, fix you with his eyes, and… wait, right, sorry…
Listen, gentle parenting is a crock, and I’m not buying it unless we get to mindful our way into a state of Keanu. Namaste.