It’s a shame we squeeze the empathy from our children
She’s six months old, able to sit up with only occasional lapses to left or right, and is now at the stage where her mother and father are beginning to try her with little bits of solid food. The trials are varied in their outcomes. The mashed-up chicken, carrot, and butternut squash experiment ended with her total satisfaction, and with photographs that — to quote Amy Huberman — looked like a dirty protest in a Cambodian prison.
But it was the quarter of lemon that generated the best pictures. She got a good grasp of the lemon in her little fist when it was offered to her, and was able to bring it to her mouth no problem. However, every time her mouth had an encounter with the lemon, her entire little face warped and she shuddered all over. It looked like torture, but because this kid is like a baby version of Paschal Donohoe — all chin-up optimism and faith in the future — no way was she going to let go of the lemon or abandon the challenge. Just as Paschal is convinced that although the public sector pay talks will be “incredibly challenging”, he will nonetheless bring them to a satisfactory conclusion, so this kid, sooner or later, expected to work on that lemon and turn it sweet. Even if it didn’t, she was going to hang in there and give it the old nursery try.
