Calvin: Friend of Children or Foe of Adults?
...t to cry or obey them without question. He twists their logic against them and manipulates them until they give up trying to reason with him and he gets his way. Calvin is popular because he embodies all the traits which parents don’t think kids have, such as intelligence, tenacity and creativity. Calvin doesn’t let age get in the way when he converses with adults. He is resourceful and uses what he doesn’t know to his advantage. For instance, quote. This demonstrates Calvin’s intelligence. This ability annoys his parents who wish he were stupid so he couldn’t see their stupidity and faults. Calvin has tenacity, which parents don’t like at all. He stands by what he believes and won’t hear anyone’s point of view. One night, Calvin and his parents went to a nice restaurant, but Calvin only saw it as a ploy to prevent him from watching TV at home. This is the conversation that followed: “Oh no! The air pressure in this room is too high! Calvin’s organs are in danger of collapsing!…There’s too much atmosphere!” Calvin laments. . This illustrates Calvin’s stubbornness and inability to put himself in someone else’s’ shoes. This may be the reason why Calvin doesn’t have any friends except for his imaginary stuffed tiger, Hobbes and why he analyzing the world trying to figure out why people don’t change their point of view to fit his. Wisdom is power, a fact sometimes unappreciated in young children such as Calvin. Most people like feel more powerful than others, especially adults when it comes to children. Therefore, when a child expresses an acute sense of wisdom, adults don’t like to acknowledge it because then they become less powerful over the child. For example, quote. This demonstrates Calvin’s parents’ inabilit...