Adults, too, are—beneath the bluster—intermittently playful, silly, fanciful, vulnerable, hysterical, terrified, pitiful, and in search of consolation and forgiveness. We’re well versed at seeing the sweet and the fragile in children and offering them help and comfort accordingly. Around them, we know how to put aside the worst of our compulsions, vindictiveness, and fury. We can recalibrate our expectations and demand a little less than we normally do; we’re slower to anger and a bit more aware of unrealized potential. We readily treat children with a degree of kindness that we are oddly and
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