Parenting Tiny Aliens

I discovered this wonderful "letter to the editor" while paging through Real Simple in a waiting room:

Treat your kids like intelligent aliens. Intelligent, because they're wired to learn at an incredible rate of speed and can process far more complex information than many people realize. Aliens, because they don't know the first thing about our civilization and need a lot of instruction to learn to live well in it. Parent long and prosper.

This captures quite well the challenges, complexity, and delight of parenting. For me, some of the most memorable and heart-warming movies and TV shows build on this dichotomy.  

E.T. -- the incredible smart little alien who had to learn to cope with our culture. And the children who befriended him without fear because they hadn't yet fully acquired the biases of our civilization.




Short Circuit with its endearing "Johnny Five" almost-human robot -- able to acquire and process incredible quantities of information but requiring lots of assistance interpreting the rules of civilization.




Mork and Mindy, which put Robin Williams on the map as the alien who struggled hilariously to understand our culture.





Perhaps if we try more often to view ourselves, our beliefs, and our cultural norms from the outside looking in, it will help us be more patient with our children and tolerant of others.