The Promises Children Make That Adults Never Hear

There are promises we make because someone asks us to. There are others we make quietly, sometimes without realizing we have made them at all. When we are children, those promises can become enormous.

“I’ll take care of her.”

“I’ll make sure everything is okay.”

“I’ll be good.”

“I won’t let anything happen to them.”

“I promise.”

Adults may hear words like those and think they are sweet. A child trying to help. A child wanting to be brave. Perhaps we smile, give him a hug, and move on because we know the world doesn't rest on his shoulders.

The problem is that sometimes nobody tells the child that.

Sometimes he means every word.

And sometimes a promise made by a child becomes something he carries long after everyone else has forgotten it was ever made.

When Love Becomes Responsibility

One of the things I explore in Struggling is what happens when a child begins carrying responsibilities that should belong to adults. Peter doesn't wake up one morning and decide he wants to grow up too quickly. He doesn't think of himself as particularly brave or self-sacrificing. He loves his family, and when the people he loves need him, he does what needs to be done.

That's an important distinction because we often admire children who behave that way. We call them mature, dependable, responsible. Those are compliments, and sometimes they are deserved. But there is another question we don't ask nearly as often: Why did this child have to become so responsible in the first place?

For Peter, responsibility doesn't arrive all at once. It happens gradually. He does one thing because someone needs him. Then he does another. Each individual act seems manageable. He can make dinner. He can take care of his sisters. He can make sure things get done. He can handle today.

Tomorrow, he does it again.

Eventually, what began as an expression of love becomes an obligation in his own mind. Nobody has to stand over him and demand it. Peter becomes the person making the demands.

And those can be the hardest demands to escape.

The Weight of “I Promise”

Adults understand—or at least we're supposed to understand—that some things are beyond our control. We can make a promise with every intention of keeping it and still discover that life has other plans.

Children don't necessarily understand that distinction.

Peter certainly doesn't.

To him, a promise isn't something you keep when circumstances allow it. You keep it. Period. If keeping it becomes difficult, you try harder. If it becomes painful, you endure the pain. If you are exhausted, you keep going.

There is something admirable in that kind of devotion. There is also something potentially devastating about it, especially when the person carrying the promise is a child.

Because what happens when keeping a promise means continually putting yourself second? What happens when you do that for so long that putting yourself second stops feeling like a choice?

Eventually, you may not even realize you're doing it.

You simply know that everybody else comes first.

The Children Who Learn to Watch

Some children become very good at reading a room.

They know when Dad is tired before he says anything. They recognize the sound of someone walking through the house and can tell from the footsteps what kind of mood that person is in. They notice when their sister is frightened even though she insists she's fine. They hear the change in someone's voice. They recognize the silence after an argument.

They learn when to speak and when not to.

They learn when someone needs help without being asked.

Eventually, they begin anticipating what everyone else needs before considering what they need themselves.

Adults often see a remarkably mature child. What they may not see is the reason that maturity developed.

Peter is a watcher. Throughout Struggling, he pays attention to the people around him because those people matter to him. He notices things. He remembers things. He worries about things that other children might never think about.

Then he acts on what he sees.

That becomes one of Peter's greatest strengths. It also becomes part of what makes his life so difficult.

Being Needed Isn't the Same as Being Seen

There is a difference between being loved, being needed, and being seen.

A child can be deeply loved and still feel invisible.

He can be surrounded by people who depend upon him and still wonder whether anyone notices the person underneath everything he does for them.

Peter wants someone to see him. Not the boy who gets things done. Not the responsible one. Not the child who can be trusted to handle things. Not the one nobody needs to worry about because “Peter will be fine.”

Peter.

Children don't usually have the language to explain that distinction. They simply know something is missing.

So they search for it.

Sometimes they find it in a grandparent, teacher, aunt or uncle. Sometimes it's a friend. Sometimes it comes from the most unexpected person imaginable.

Someone listens a little longer.

Someone notices the thing everyone else missed.

Someone asks a second question instead of accepting “I'm fine.”

And for a child accustomed to watching everyone else, suddenly realizing that someone is watching over him can mean more than that adult will ever know.

The Child Nobody Worries About

I've often wondered about the children adults describe this way:

“We never had to worry about him.”

It sounds like praise.

Sometimes it probably is.

But sometimes I think that's exactly the child we should have worried about.

The difficult child gets attention because something is obviously wrong. The frightened child gets comfort because we can see the fear. The child who cries gives us an opportunity to ask what hurts.

But what about the child who simply handles it?

What about the child who learns that being useful earns approval? What happens when being strong becomes so much a part of his identity that he doesn't know how to tell someone when he isn't strong?

Perhaps the better question isn't whether a child appears capable of carrying something.

Perhaps the question is whether he should have to carry it at all.

Maybe You Knew a Peter

Maybe you grew up with one.

Perhaps there was a child in your family who always seemed a little older than the other children. The responsible one. The dependable one. The one adults trusted. The one everyone assumed would be okay.

Maybe you've raised a child like that.

Or maybe, when you think back far enough, you realize you were that child.

If you were, perhaps there were promises you made too. Not necessarily promises spoken beside a hospital bed or during some life-changing moment. They may have been much quieter.

I'll take care of them.

I won't cause any trouble.

They have enough to worry about.

I can handle it.

Maybe nobody asked you to make those promises.

Maybe nobody even knew you had.

Yet they shaped you anyway.

That's one of the reasons I wanted to tell Peter's story. Struggling is certainly about what happens to a boy and his family, but I've never believed Peter's experiences belong only to Peter. There are pieces of him in people we encounter every day, including people we have known for years without ever knowing what they carried as children.

Sometimes the quietest promises are the ones that shape an entire life.

And sometimes, if we want to understand the adult someone eventually becomes, we first have to see the child who made the promise.

— Steve Bull-Fretwell