Blankety Boo

I don't understand why sleeping with a blankie is considered childish.

Okay, well, I do understand. Sort of. Babies sleep with blankies. Children sleep with blankies. And after you reach a certain age, you start thinking that you want to be a grown-up. You start wanting respect from the people you admire. You start thinking that you have to be strong and mature and that being strong and mature means immediately ceasing any and all behaviours associated with being a child. Including sleeping with blankies.

I think that when kids start going through this, what they don't realize is that being an adult doesn't make you this impenetrable wall of security, because often times that's all they see. They see their parents. They see their parents deciding what to make for dinner and telling them that there is nothing under the bed and that the massive gust of wind won't actually pick them up off the ground. They see their parents being secure, because that is what their parents show them. A parent doesn't generally show their child the bills piling up in the mailbox that they won't be able to even start paying until Thursday; a dad reads Cinderella to the kids until they fall asleep and then cries himself breathless because his wife is having an affair she thinks he doesn't know about; or maybe she's not having an affair but he thinks she wants to but she says she doesn't but he doesn't believe her because how could she love someone as insecure as him? You don't show your kids that shit. You don't want to scare them, or hurt them, or have to try to explain something to them that is uncomfortable and that you probably don't even want to think about or that you maybe don't even fully understand. And so children grow up believing that adults don't need help, that they've all had security permanently stuck inside of them in an official Growing Up ceremony that gave them all the answers when they turned twenty-five.

Blankies give comfort that children trying to grow up don't think they should need. But everyone needs comfort. I think at some point everyone realizes that adults are still confused, only with bigger consequences. We realize that there is not going to be a moment in our lives where we are suddenly sure of everything and will feel completely safe for the rest of time. I'm still half hoping. But once you realize that, how can you think it shameful to need a blankie? Why is it only okay to fall asleep holding something if it is alive? We cuddle our friends and our loves and our pets and our parents, but what about when they aren't around? Are we supposed to just suddenly shed our need to be close, to have something or someone to hold on to? I think that's stupid. If I'm in bed alone and panicking and need something to remind me that I'm still attached to the earth, I will squeeze my blankie against my chest and feel safe.