I Am Happy

Happy New Year! But… What does that mean, “happy,” really? Do we know?

If you spend any time with small kids, you’ll have picked up on a truth we adults notice less among ourselves: emotional experiences can be contagious. When one toddler cries, the rest of the room can become concerned. When one toddler giggles, the others gravitate to the fun. When my Spriggan giggles, so do I, and he checks with me, “Are you happy?” Yes, I tell him, I’m happy because you make me happy.

This new book from Michael Rosen, I Am Happy, is contagious happiness in a cheerful yellow cover.

I wondered, at first sight of the title, whether it would be a book about feelings, and I admit to a sinking feeling of dread as I contemplated the thought of another book about feelings. A catalogue? A permission slip? Details with diagrams, maybe. Please, no. Then I saw it was by Michael Rosen and I saw the gleeful dog on the cover and the sense of dread dissipated. I trust Michael Rosen; I generally expect him to be honest and straightforward.

And this isn’t a book about happiness. It simply is happiness. You see that ever so simple dog on the cover? That dog is happy. Really, REALLY happy. So happy that we get to watch the dog bounding through the book, chasing a cat’s bubbles and pulling the initially skeptical cat by the paw into a waltz until, swept off all four paws, the cat is just as happy as the dog. They walk on clouds, pulling a squirrel into their midst, and dance in a fountain with a rabbit joining in. If you can finish the book on the last line: “Let’s play all day!” without immediately, and sincerely, adding, “I am happy!” then you’re more of a rule-follower than I am.

Many adults, I think, forget to think about happiness. Adults are a judgmental species of human. We assess each feeling according to a moral code. Consider the following options: fun (tentatively ok, but slightly naughty; decidedly naughty if undertaken after 9 pm), pleasure (decadent and definitely naughty at any hour of the day), and joy (that one is ok so long as it’s elevated, but is most likely to meet conventionally moral criteria during work hours), but happiness is somehow not really on the menu. And, honestly, all of the above are on the dessert menu, to be chosen for a special treat but not in the usual calorie count. Happiness, maybe on the kiddie menu? How can we be happy in a world where bad things happen? Is it even ethical?

I just deleted a far too descriptive paragraph of the awfulness out there, realizing we all know it and I don’t want it on my blog at the moment. Thank me later. The point was all in one sentence: Who can even hear a giggle for all the yelling? We ignore giggles. Giggles are what kids do, and we’re busy having important conversations about serious things.

Most adults, I think, don’t think it’s right to be happy. Kids can be, we suppose, because they are innocent and naive and don’t know how bad things are.

They’ll grow out of it. Sigh. All too soon, right? They’ll learn.

I absolutely loathe that attitude. It makes me angry. First and foremost: even very young children aren’t naively happy; they’re acutely aware that a skinned knee hurts, that a friend might push you and you’ll both be angry, and that when someone yells, that’s scary. (NB: Maybe, fellow adults, we should turn down the volume a bit?) They also express happiness when it’s anyone’s birthday and there’s cake, they help up a friend who fell down and hug them, and they say “please” when grabbing a toy from another friend and “thank you” before the other child realizes they hadn’t meant to share it. (That one always makes me chuckle inside, so long as it all works out.) They experience and openly show a full range of feelings. (That’s called “maturity.” Adults should work on that.)

What Michael Rosen does here is sheer brilliance: the book is a simple read aloud, and boy have I tested this one out so I can testify that it’s so simple it practically reads itself off your tongue while you and the kid sliding off your lap giggle along with it. That simplicity is absolutely key. To a child, it’s distillation of a feeling they experience and show every time they wake up on the right side of the bed, or a parent gives them the right cereal in the right bowl with the right spoon, or they get a card with a kitty on it in the mail. That reflection of their experience is reassuring and warming. It helps them feel stable, and it’s a way to share it with their caregiver. To the adult reading along, it’s a wholesome contagion and permission. I highly suggest accepting that permission and exposing yourself to the contagion.

Share the child’s happiness. It’s ok. Actually, experiencing a range of feelings is so far from being a bad thing, it’s actually what being human is. And, as I said, it’s mature. Here’s a permission slip from another adult to be happy: “Dear Adult, You have my permission to laugh out loud and walk on a cloud. Go on. Be happy. Off you fly.* Signed, Another Adult”

[*Footnote: I don’t want to be accused of plagiarism, so, yes, I slipped a quote from The Woman Who Turned Children Into Birds by David Almond and Laura Carlin in there. Nanty Solo also gives you permission to be happy.]

Look, emotions aren’t inherently good or bad. Anger can be important motivation to stand up for justice or to right a wrong. That said, it can stand between friends, inhibiting dialogue and simmering into ugliness until it curdles to pettiness and spite. Happiness can be thoughtless or even sadistic in the wrong place. It can also be generous, beautiful, or bubbly. At its very best, it can soothe a day into a gorgeous rest to energize tomorrow. Let your child be happy, and join them.

For a child, it’s simply gorgeous to see normal, beautiful feelings represented so realistically. But it’s only as good as the sharing. So enter into it on the level of the kid you’re reading to. Trust me. Join them.