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Make-Believe Rag

Every time I turn around there seems to be another mind-blowing revelation from a team of childhood development scientists with nothing better to do than strap small children into chairs and glue electrodes all over their skulls. This week, while conducting highly academic research on parenting issues and baseball standings, I ran across another such masterpiece. This study says, in a nutshell, that engaging in make-believe play will exercise a child's abstract thinking skills, resourcefulness, and self-sufficiency.

Test subjects were divided into two groups. The control group was not allowed to engage in make-believe of any sort, and to this end they were forced to wear headphones playing this endlessly-repeating message: "You are strapped in a chair with wires all over your head!" Meanwhile, the experimental group was instructed to make-believe to their hearts' content, and to this end they were given toys, dolls, pleasant music, and powerful psychoactive drugs.

While 62% of the control group reacted negatively, nearly 98% of the experimental group reported a positive experience, and two subjects volunteered for another stint.

As usual, however, research is one thing and real life is another. Around our house, make-believe play is serious business. Emma reserves the choicest roles for herself while I get relegated to sidekick status. Often I am required to simultaneously play the parts of several companions from various stories and tales, the inherent danger being that I am never sure which character should be doing the talking at any given point. I just take a shot at it and then humbly stand corrected when she loses patience and shouts "No! You're not the Scarecrow, you're Elmo!"

Elmo, of course. What was I thinking?

It only take a few minutes of this kind of browbeating before my self-confidence is whittled down to nothing and I stand there like a raw recruit, ready to take orders. It's the moment she's been waiting for. Once I have acknowledged her total authority over the terms and conditions of the game, the line between make-believe and the cobbled-together social order of our household begins to blur.

"Maybe I could be Dorothy and you could be the Three Bears and the Cowardly Lion and Curious George and the Runaway Bunny, and we could go on a journey to the witch's castle and Dorothy could eat some M&Ms."

She figures if she tacks it on the end as a sort of contractual rider that I won't notice. Kind of like the fine print.

"No," I'll say. "You can not have any candy before dinner." I am firm and rational Parent-man, O hear me speak.

"Not for me. For Dorothy."

Openly denying this bit of logic will get you branded as a party pooper, a killjoy, and an enemy of the state. The only strategy is to hand over some make-believe candies. It's a longshot.

A child's attempts to use make-believe play to manipulate the rules of the "real" world are not addressed by the research crowd. Indeed, what are the limits to make-believe? True, all children should partake, but to what end? It's like debating whether free speech extends to being allowed to yell "fire" in a crowded theater.

Not that I am anti-make-believe. On the contrary, it is an essential survival mechanism, right up there with denial. Many is the morning when I wake up and say to myself, "Hey, let's pretend that was enough sleep..."

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© Todd Pinsky 1998-2002. All rights reserved.