Parenting Techniques Inspired By Noam Chomsky
How the father of modern linguistics can ease your life under a tiny tyrant.
Radical linguist and political gadfly Noam Chomsky can help you raise a willful toddler.
The most important intellectual alive today (according to the New York Times) will likely not babysit your monster. Nor is a book on parenting among his published works. Just like the mainstream media, you too can ignore Chomsky’s criticism of American foreign policy. But his analysis of how governments treat people, distilled into the following guidelines, can ease your life under a tiny tyrant.
Define Boundaries
In a toddler emergency, the Chomsky-inspired parent presents permissible choices while maintaining the illusion of freedom. At bedtime, when your pajamas-clad monkey is attempting to escape, give her two options.
“Would you like to lie on your tummy or your back before I put the blanket on you?” you ask.
No matter how furiously she might be tugging at the bars of her cage — sorry, crib — she will pause, reflect and answer, “Tummy.”
Your victory will be based on Chomsky’s thesis that free societies committed to neoliberal capitalism reduce democracy to a multiple-choice quiz in the form of elections. Larger questions about the structure of the economy or the necessity of bedtime need not be on the spectrum of acceptable debate.
Distract
Are you in the midst of a presidential sex scandal? Fabricate a war!
You might recall that the American bombing of a Sudanese factory came suspiciously close to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Distraction, according to Chomsky, is a useful technique for population and toddler control.
Your child should be slightly more gullible than the public. Even a highly implausible claim (“Is that Peppa Pig on your scooter?”) can distract from the demand for ice cream. As any astute parent (or statesman) who recognizes the beginning of a toddler meltdown (or great-power skirmish) knows, sometimes a moment is all you need to deflect approaching catastrophe.
Manufacture Consent
Chomsky asserts that, unlike a totalitarian regime, a democracy does not use violence to control its citizens. Instead, it relies on media propaganda to manufacture consent for policies that would otherwise be hard to swallow — like the Vietnam War or the nasty antibiotic you convince your little one to imbibe.
“It’s fine, don’t drink this. Then your throat boo-boo will go to your legs and you won’t be able to walk to the park tomorrow,” you say cheerfully to your anxious tot. Done right, your brilliant use of the domino theory will succeed. Fear usually does.
This technique, though difficult to master, will let you implement unpopular policies such as bedtime and broccoli while keeping the rabble — i.e. your child — in line.
Lie
Kids lose early memories. The Chomsky reader can incorporate childhood amnesia into a toddler-management method, to be used only in the direst of circumstances.
“Wine is like milk for mommy. But it’s bad for little boys and girls,” you proclaim to your suspicious spawn when she demands refreshment during an evening (or morning) wine-and-cheese break. Success! She inhales the Camembert and ignores the Chardonnay.
Even a good lie has a limited shelf life. We now know what Chomsky said all along: Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Lying works, but not indefinitely, even for a 2-year-old. Bad parents and governments lie solely to preserve power. Try not being one every once in a while.
Of course, unless your surname is Hitler or Khan, your little one is probably a feeble sort of tyrant. Odds are, she will fail to invade Poland and her pyramid of skulls will collapse.
But even in the worst case, your liability is limited. Chomsky contends that we are born with the capacity to acquire language, indicating that part of human nature is not putty for propagandists.
Corollary: Relax. Your many failures as a parent will not stifle your child’s spirit.
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