Mother Tongue: The Long and Short of It

Theo asked me if the Olympics' swimming pool was as big as our neighborhood pool. "The Olympic pool is much bigger," I said. That should have sufficed, but I continued:---

"Some lap pools are 25 meters long, but Olympic pools are 50 meters. That means that in the race we're watching, the swimmers have to swim one way and then turn around and swim all the way back. That's 100 meters. This race is the 100-meter butterfly, and the woman who's ahead is super fast." I then explained the mechanics of the butterfly stroke compared to freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and Theo's 1-meter dogpaddle, including the fact that the four main strokes were part of an event called the "individual medley," in which…

After Dana Vollmer finished her record-breaking 100-meter fly, Theo, who I'd assumed was considering my thorough explanation, asked, "So can that girl hold her breath in the pool as long as I can?"

Brevity is not my strong suit, even—and sometimes, oddly, especially—in response to my children. I'm not sure quite why this is.

Perhaps it's partly because I want to help my kids make sense of their world. I would like to think it's less an impulse to over-explain everything than it is a desire to expose them to the details that make things so fascinating. When their interest guides the exploration, the details captivate all of us. Earth has a solid metal center! The sun is a ball of fire! This string rolls up the drawbridge when you wind it around this rod! But I fill in when the kids don't lead, too.

In my defense, my husband began an explication of holiday evolution at about 500 B.C. when Theo asked about Easter eggs. (In Adam's defense, he's in the field of law, where a so-called "brief" can extend beyond 100 pages.) But when I tiredly tried to explain to my toddler, Sylvia, that she needed another bite because it's important to eat vegetables, proteins and carbohydrates, she just made a great throaty guffaw and spit out her food.

The first definition of "brevity" is concise, exact wording; the second is shortness of time. In writing—and, apparently, parental speech—the latter hamstrings the pursuit of the former.

On one hand, I have time for long, convoluted explanations. On the other hand, reflective, clear-thinking time is all but nonexistent—so I am short an essential ingredient for self-editing. When I'm too tired for precision, I expound on nutrient balance and swimming-pool length. Taking two full minutes to clarify the rationale for a rule is anything but clarifying; even if my kids were listening at that point, I'm not sure I'd make much sense to them, or anyone.

I've made a living marketing, writing and editing, and I value careful, incisive communication. After all, "brevity is the soul of wit, /And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes." But while Hamlet's wise (and long-winded) Polonius says, "I will be brief," I don't even venture the claim when talking to my children.

By this rubric, I have far too little wit. By Dorothy Parker's measure—"Brevity is the soul of lingerie"—I also have far too little lingerie. Maybe this is just a time-of-life issue? Maybe when you're parenting small children, brevity, wit and lingerie are simply too much to expect.

On the flip side, the busy-ness of life with small children is full of tiny spans of time that hold remarkable degrees of activity, language and wonder. In the best cases, this inspires a carpe brevitās mentality.

We went camping for one night last weekend. Since we are car-camping maximalists, we were set for a good week in Gallinas Canyon—and our prep time was better suited to that span. But even one night was worth it.

It is always worth it to get out of the house and out of town, go on a hike, cook weird food combinations on a camp stove, listen to a creek, get wet and dirty, drink the beer that doesn't get spilled by a teetering child, break a sweat inflating Therm-a-rests in a hot tent, smell like campfire, roast marshmallows, sleep under the stars, wake up outside. All that fits within a brief 24 hours.

After our friends left the campsite and as we packed up, Theo played in the creek running just behind our site. When it was time to go, he said, "Come see my adventure first!"

We followed as he veered off the trail and slid down a steep bank under some willows. After much stooping and squat-waddling, we joined him on a flat bar of river cobbles. "You can stay there," he said. He ducked under a fallen log and crossed a dappled, hip-deep pool of water. Then he climbed up the beaver dam's tangled logs and stood proudly on a downed tree above us.

Later, he relived it: "It was like being in a cave because of all the leaves, like this. And the water felt like I was crossing a moat. And then I climbed out the steep sticks? It was a good adventure."

That's a lot of action for five minutes. It may even put in perspective Dana Vollmer's 55.98-second butterfly race. It's true: You can fit a lot in a little time. Sometimes packing it in—words, activities, dolphin kicks—yields brilliance. Other times it compounds confusion and tiredness. Either way, I can embrace the capacity of brevity, and also some self-editing skills.

Santa Fe Reporter