When Do People Stop Being Nice to Children?
When Do People Stop Being Nice to Children?
Asking for a Father of an 11-Month-Old
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I write letters every week to my son, Myles, sharing my journey as a first-time dad and spreading the love I didn't experience myself. If you’ve been here before — thank you for coming back. If you’re new here, below are some good places to start:
Recently I decided to dig a little deeper and explore some topics around fatherhood, my own upbringing, and what it means to be raising a Black son. For the foreseeable future, I’ll be keeping all poems to Myles open to free subscribers and his Monthly Mylestones too, but I will be paywalling some of these letters and slowly archiving past letters. You can read more about this decision and my thinking in the letter below I sent last week to all readers.
Appreciation time: I want to say thank you
for recently becoming paid subscriber and joining me in this journey on going deeper. I appreciate you.
Week 50
Dear Myles,
After taking several flights and trips to restaurants and grocery stores with you since you were born, I’m convinced that people are much nicer when you are carrying a child.
They are eager to help, their smiles widening to their ears.. They see what I see—your beauty, innocence, and harmlessness—all wrapped in 20 pounds and 28 inches of goodness.
They wave and play hide and seek with you when we are sitting at restaurants, and they run with all their might ahead to open doors for us. On flights, they compliment you and say how good of a baby you are, even when you are being fussy—how forgiving they are. I wish I could capture every look and face when people see you—old turn young, frowns crack into smiles, stress is erased by joy, and those who were in such a hurry suddenly have time. “You have a beautiful child,” is the refrain.
People are much nicer when you are carrying a child.
In those small moments, when they bend their backs to wave at you, squat their knees to notice your four front teeth, and how they desperately, if we'd let them, want to reach out to touch and hold you—it feels like gravity is suspended and their countenance seems to rise up. For a brief moment, we all forget the ills of the Earth.
In these small moments, there is no such thing as difference, because who could discriminate against those cheeks? Who can be mean to that smile? What prejudice could one hold when you clap your hands in excitement? How could hate or malice live in anyone’s heart when you wave excitedly at anyone and anything that looks at you?
But the pediatrician told us when to start solids, yet never told us at what age people will stop seeing you for what you are, and reduce you to what they see.