Piority

The I'm of an age where a lot of my friends have small children. Some of them are learning to share right now, which is an odd thought: that we need to learn to share. Although I suppose it's not that odd. When a child is born it knows only that it is awake, hungry or uncomfortable. The solution to each of these states is provided by the child's carer (usually a parent) quite often at the expense of the carer (monetary or otherwise). A baby has no concept that its need for comfort or sustenance in the middle of the night has a detrimental impact on the health of its parent, it simply knows that it is hungry or uncomfortable. It is utterly selfish, but we forgive it because it is also ignorant to the impacts of its selfishness. By and large as a child gradually becomes aware of the world around it, then of itself and finally of others, it learns of the consequences of its actions. As its needs are augmented by a plethora of wants, it discovers that there is a finite limit to the provision of those wants. It may not understand the logic or rationale behind that limit, but it eventually comes to understand that there is a limit (even if that understanding comes after many tantrums). The understanding of the logic and rationale behind those limits is pretty much the whole of the process of growing up, from learning to understand the impact of sharing, to understanding the ways in which all our wants and needs are satisfied, to understanding the complex consequences of attempting to satisfy all those wants and needs. The latter, of course, taking up basically a lifetime, assuming we ever get out of the first stage. Some people never really get to understanding sharing, seeing it as something they simply had to do as a child, and they certainly never get to attempting to understand the consequences of satisfying their needs and wants. They effectively remain in a state of arrested development, but because they are full size, we assume that they are adults. We often give credence to their demands because people have given credence to them in the past and they have been successful in accumulating credibility for their demands. Do we ever question whether demanding people understand their high expectations, their requirements and consequences, or are just massive babies in suits*? 

*with no tie because they demanded that too