Empathy

A long time ago in college while studying Piaget or some other dude that wrote stuff about kids, I learned that young kids don't feel bad for others until a certain age. They can't imagine what something would feel like to them. This really didn't hit me until I had kids myself.

I soon realized when I said, "Ivy, how would you feel if Mommy pinched you like you did Story?" that when she said, "Bad," she was just telling me what I wanted to hear. She really had no clue what she did to Story or anybody.

Now I am starting to witness her empathetic growth. (I could pretend that its something mystical and meaningful we did for her to realize this, but if you know me at all, you'd know I was lying). She is starting to show empathy through DVDs.

We used to watch things like Beauty and the Beast or Monsters, Inc. without any emotion whatsoever except a laugh when appropriate (and sometimes not). Now, when we watch a kind of sad part of  movie, Ivy starts to cry.

It began when we watched Up. About halfway through the movie, long after Daddy and Story had gone to sleep, Ivy had this puzzled look on her face. I asked her what was wrong. "Mommy, where's the old woman in the pictures?" she asked with a hint of suspiciousness in her voice.

What to do? "Uh, that's the old man's wife."

"But where is she?" Crap.

"Ivy, she died and went to live with Jesus."

Ivy contemplated this for a minute, and then turned her innocent, shining face to mine, tears spilling out of her eyes and said, "But will he ever see her again?"

The truth hurts, but I try if at all possible not to lie to her. "He will when he dies and goes to live with Jesus."

She shuddered  little and said, "Is he lonely?"

"Maybe a little." Then the sobbing began. She sobbed intermittently throughout the rest of the movie, and cried fresh tears at the end when they were playing all of the pictures of the old man and the boy scout. I tried to explain to her that the old man wasn't lonely anymore, but she wasn't buying it.

It hurt me inside to have her so upset and not able to do a thing about it. But on the other hand, it was wondrous to see her finally starting to feel people's emotions.

The other night, we watched  The Princess and the Frog. **spoiler alert** When the lightning bug died, boy was she upset. Not only because he was a lightning bug, but she was outraged that someone had stepped on him! She cried again, and I held her, helpless.

As excited as I am about this change in her emotional intelligence, I have decided that this summer, we will stay away from such cinematic delights as  Bambi, Old Yeller, and E.T.  I just think that I need to be  little bit more emotionally mature to handle it. =P