I set the foam steps down at the foot of the couch.
they are stairs in soft foam, sized for him. he just finished his bottle. his toys are scattered on the alphabet mat. the playpen is open. i am standing back to see what he does.
he can already get down from the couch if i help him into position. we are moving toward the version where i do not have to help him into position.
i could have lifted him up. i did not.
he is thirteen months old. the couch is not a hard problem for me. the problem would be solved by my arms in less than a second. i can pick him up. i can put him where he is going. the problem for him is a different problem. he has to find the path. he has to commit weight to the first step. he has to feel that the second one holds. he has to figure out where the hands go. he has to do the work.
the foam is not there to help him. the foam is there to keep the work survivable. that is a different thing.
the entire culture i live inside is offering me a different move. the easy lift. the second-and-a-half solution. the parent who picks the child up & sets him on the couch because the parent's time is too valuable to spend watching a slow climb. the parent who buys the gadget that makes the gadget unnecessary. the parent who lets the algorithm decide what the child watches next so the parent can finish slack. every one of those moves is a vote against the muscle the child is supposed to be building right now.
i was right about social media. i was right about bitcoin. i was right about ai. i remain of the mind that the parents who win the next twenty years are the parents who learn how to set the foam down & step back. not because they are mean. not because they are old-fashioned. because they understand that comfort is not capacity. the child who never has to do the climb has not been protected. he has been quietly disarmed.
the foam is also a thing. a physical thing. it has weight. it has edges. it has slightly tacky feet. it is not a function on a phone. the room he is growing up inside is going to keep offering to replace the materials with apps. the apps will know more. the apps will respond faster. the apps will never let him fall the way the foam will let him fall. that is not a feature. the falling is part of the climb. you cannot ship the climb. you can only set the foam down & let him do it.
the foam is not the opposite of the lift. there are mornings i still lift him. there are mornings i will lift him for years. the question is whether i remember the difference between the mornings the lift is the right answer & the mornings the climb is the right answer. the culture he is growing up inside will offer me the lift every single time. the climb has to be chosen.
the part i am not going to clean up. i am the parent who has spent the morning offloading the same kind of friction at the desk. agents drafting the messages i could have drafted. systems doing the routing i could have routed. some of that offloading is the correct call. the desk has too much. but the same instinct walks into the living room with me. the instinct says: the foam is in the way. the foam is unnecessary. just lift him up. let him watch from the couch. it would take six seconds. the math is overwhelming.
if i do not catch that instinct, the climb never happens. it gets traded in for a faster morning every single time, until the climb becomes a thing the child has never done, & then a thing the child cannot do, & then a thing the child does not know to ask for.
so i set the foam down. i set the toys out. i opened the playpen. i made the room a room he could move in without me filling every gap. then i stood back. that part is the hardest. the standing back is harder than the lift.
he may climb today. he may not climb today. some of the steps will hold under him. some will shift. some of the early attempts will look like failures that are not failures. that is the curriculum.
the foam is not the curriculum. the foam is the floor under the curriculum. the curriculum is the climb.
What I am holding onto
the easy lift is the parent's instinct in a frictionless room. the work of not lifting is the work. the foam is there to keep the climb survivable, not to do the climb for him.
comfort is not capacity. a child who never has to find the next step has not been spared. he has been quietly disarmed. the muscle the climb builds is the muscle the world will keep trying to bypass.
the room can be designed. the climb cannot be designed. the parent's job is to set up the room so the climb is possible, & then step back so the climb actually happens. the standing back is the move.
Cheers, JanCarlos
if this landed, forward it to a parent in the early lifting years. tell them about a moment you set something down & stepped back.