So what does it say about us as parents when our two-year-old daughter brings us copies of parenting books when we go to the library?
No, really -- this actually happened on her last visit there, and Sally brought home the copy of Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy that Aimee dumped on her lap before heading off in search of more George and Martha books for herself.
That's not the scary part. Consider this letter from the book. It isn't signed, but it's safe to assume it's from a Mensa Parent of the Year award winner:
Dear Doctors:
I have a problem of fear in a usually fearless boy who is just three. When he was about a year old we gave him a clown that rolls back and forth, with a very realistic face and eyes that roll. At first he seemed a little afraid of it, but soon he seemed happy enough. In fact, for a time he liked it so much that he carried it around.
A few evenings ago we saw a TV program about a circus. There was some violence in the picture. A knife thrower was trying to kill some other man, and although he wasn't dressed as a clown, there were clowns in the play.
I don't know if that caused it, but the next evening, our son said, "The clown is going to hurt me." His daddy told him no, the clown was just like any other dolly. This morning, the first thing he said was something about the clown.
I thought about burning the clown before his eyes, but perhaps that would be too dramatic. We are going to leave soon for a vacation with his grandma. Would it be best to take the clown along or to leave it at home?
Wow.
To the authors' credit, here's the first sentence of their response:
You seem to have made several mistakes.
They go on to point out that a clown "seems a somewhat dubious choice as a play object for a little boy," that perhaps the choice of television program was a bad one, and that -- and I never would have figured this next thing out -- "burning the clown would indeed be too dramatic. It might lead to a fear of fires as well as a fear of clowns."
Not to toot my own parenting horn or anything, but this was Aimee's reaction to seeing a life-size Ronald McDonald sculpture while stuck during an interminable layover at the Dublin airport:
"Creepy man! Aimee wants to see the creepy man!"
I couldn't be more proud.