Hey Daddy, I Have Whiskers…

Ever wonder about things people do on instinct versus learned behaviors? I have.

I’m guilty of instilling learned behaviors in my daughter. For example, it’s taboo in our society for women to have facial hair. So I had to correct my two-year-old daughter, Belle, when she recently started reporting, “Hey Daddy, I have whiskers.”

Not whiskers like a lion, mind you. “Whiskers like Daddy!” she said.

“You don’t have whiskers,” I told her.

“I don’t?”

“No, I have whiskers because I’m a big guy,” I told her.

“Big guy,” she repeated.

“You’re a big girl,” I said.

“Big girl,” she repeated.

“Yeah, and big girls don’t have whiskers… generally.”

“Ohhhoooohhhh,” she said. That’s another learned behavior. My wife says “Ohhhoooohhh” all the time—raising her voice at the tail end. It’s a phrase that often comes in handy for Belle.

Like the time I bought her dried apricot snacks.

“Daddy, may I have some ap-cots, please?”

“Fraid not, Belle.”

“Why, Daddy?”

“Because I can’t open the hermetically sealed plastic bag inside the box and now my teeth hurt.”

“Ohhhoooooohhhh.”

She has even turned it around to point out how Daddy is mentally challenged. “Daddy, I’d like some hermphhohhhmmm.”

“Some what?”

“Some hermmphhpphmmm.” Then she walked over to the ham and cheese on the counter, pointed and said, “ohhoooooohhh, the ham and cheese, Daddy, ohhooohhh.”

Some things are definitely instinctual. Like fear—and pawning it off on someone else to make it appear you’re not scared. Belle recently started pawning hers off on her baby brother, Johnny.

"Johnny is scared of monsters in the basement sometimes," Belle said, finger in her mouth, eyes to the side, other arm swinging.

"He is?" I said.

"Yeaaaaah," she said, nodding matter-of-factly as if her mute brother had just told her.

"Do YOU get scared of monsters in the basement, Belle?"

"Yeaaaaah. Sometimes.”

“Oooohhooooh,” I said.

“Hey Daddy, I not a monster. I a human.”

Copyright Christopher Hollenback, 2007, all rights reserved.