Control

One of the odder, and perhaps even paradoxical, realizations of becoming a seasoned parent is that the more one understands about raising a child, the more one begins to cede control over that child. Sure, there are a few moments shortly after birth in which, still stunned, we hand our infant over to the hospital staff for measurements and immediate care. But the two or three months after that are characterized largely by a relatively complete parental control: we hold our baby, we decide where to walk her, what to tell her, when to feed her, and so on.

And then, inevitably, that control erodes. When she's old enough for the Baby Bjorn, you walk to the Whole Foods, and as you walk Cleo by the bananas you realize that the speakers are playing a Police song that's about a teacher romancing a student. Outside, you show Cleo the branches of a bush - only to realize that she's now also old enough to grab the leaves, or berries, and shove them into her tiny maw. At night, you lay her in her crib, and then realize that she's speaking to herself, in wonderful nonsense syllables, for minutes on end.

The world is hers, as well as yours, in other words. And just as you can't control with very much specificity the contours of the aural landscape through which we move - the sharp, abrupt honks of aggrieved commuters in cars; the glorious honks of overhead geese commuting to Georgia - you can't pretend to control with any fullness this baby who's becoming a child. You may want to read a book, but she may want to sit and drool. Somewhere a sound engineer programs tracks for Whole Foods locations across the country. You may choose to enter a particular location, and you may choose to raise a child, but such choices ultimately only represent gradual surrenders to the tacit will of others.