"Can't sleep. Clown will eat me!"
- Bart Simpson
Snap quiz: Kids love clowns. Right?
Not so fast. According to a study published in January in
Nursing Standard (a British journal), it's quite the opposite. I'm happy to report (for reasons I'll explain) that kids actually loathe clowns. The authors interviewed 240 hospitalized kids (ages 4-16 years) and asked if they appreciated the obligatory visits by clowns to cheer them up. The authors were surprised to find "that clowns are universally disliked by children. Some found them quite frightening and unknowable."
What a relief. I have always found them to be so, but as a sensitive, child-loving pediatrician, I've felt it politically incorrect to voice my prejudice.
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I vividly remember the following internal monologue when I was about seven years old and a clown insistently tried to amuse me at the Michigan State Fair:
"Omygod. What manner of creature is this? What is his little game? What does he want from me? Why he is so in my face? How have I come to live in world where beings like this exist? Get me out of here. Dad, save me. This guy is scaring me!" Turns out that - unbeknown to me - I'm part of the great silent majority who abominates clowns (we'll deal with mimes and Patch Adams at another time), and who holds in great suspicion the motives and mental health of many who put on red noses and oversized shoes to "cheer up" the children.
So I'm glad I don't like clowns, because if I liked clowns I would want to see them and I detest clowns.
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Author's message To me, this whole clown debacle makes an important point: we adults just don't understand kids. We think of their lives as blissful and carefree, living large and loving clowns. But of course they are far more complicated than that, often wracked with
anxieties and insecurities and feelings of powerlessness, mystified at the workings of the world and easily undone.
With our adult projections, we naively assume that all children love clowns (to the point we even inflict them on hospitalized kids). Which is why I love this study. Someone finally had the good sense to actually talk to and ask the kids themselves what they like and why. We need to do a lot more of that.
译文:
孩子、小丑和“纯真年代”
“不能睡着，小丑会吃掉我的！”
——巴特·辛普森
脑筋急转弯：小孩子都喜欢小丑，不是么？
别这么快下结论。据英国一本的杂志《看护标准》（Nursing Standard）上刊登的一项研究，事实恰恰相反——孩子其实很讨厌小丑，看到这一报道，我很高兴，晚些解释其中缘由。研究者们采访了240位住院治疗的孩子，年龄从4岁到16岁。研究者提的问题时：喜不喜欢小丑例行来访鼓励他们呢？研究者惊讶地发现：很多孩子都不喜欢小丑，有些孩子还觉得小丑很恐怖，不知道小丑是什么。
真让人松口气。我一直觉得孩子们不喜欢小丑，但是作为一名儿科医生，我觉得这个问题很敏感，而且出于对孩子的关心，直接把自己想法说出来显得有些政治偏见。
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七岁那会儿，在密歇根的市集上一个小丑硬是要逗我笑，我至今清楚记得当时心里嘀咕什么：“天哪！这是什么怪物？他在忙活什么？他想要我怎么样？他干嘛要对我这样？为什么我生活的世界有这种怪物？放我走啊。爸爸，救我啊！这家伙真吓人！！”
结果，我没有意识到，很多人讨厌小丑但是没啃声，我也是“沉默的大多数”中的一员。小丑戴着大红鼻子，穿超大的鞋子来“鼓舞”孩子们，这让我们大多数人对其动机和心理健康表示怀疑。还包括哑剧，电影《亚当医生》（讲的是一位医生又想当医生又想当小丑的故事）同样如此。
所以，我很高兴我不喜欢小丑，因为如果我喜欢，那我就会去看。真的很讨厌小丑。
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作者如是说
对我来说，小丑的这般境遇，其实也反应了一个重要问题：我们成年人真的不太理解孩子。我们觉得他们生活幸福，无忧无虑，生活自在，喜欢小丑。但是他们显然要比这复杂得多，也会受到焦虑的困扰，也会缺乏安全感，觉得无助，对成人世界的一切如此困惑，容易感到挫败。
从成人的眼光看，我们认为所有的孩子都喜欢小丑的话，就太天真了（某种程度上这让很多住院的孩子感到痛苦）。有些大人最后成功地和孩子交流，了解他们到底喜欢什么，为什么喜欢。我们在这方面的工作还有待加强。