Accidentals: Afraid of the Dark

Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash

I set forth the argument that children are not afraid of night's darkness, at least not until adults pass on their fears of the dark to them, as if a sort of rites of passage. Perhaps it is adults who are afraid of the dark. Or perhaps, if children really are afraid, it is just an adaption mechanism.

The idea that children are afraid of the dark is questionable to no end. Animals spend a long time in the darkness, especially before they are born, leaving aside what becoming intellectually or spiritually enlightened might look like for the moment, around nine months for humans. That's a lot of time. An apologist might suggest that we embrace the light that life brings with it so strongly, now that we've come to know of it, post birth, that we have a hard time letting go of it, every night. Is it really though the silence of the light that ignites fear of the dark?

It is more likely that adults "afraid of the dark" are simply projections that attempt to describe children's woes of going to bed. If we isolate the behavior of children, the facts are just that a child cried. Why they cried, is pure conjecture. The child can hence be said to be not afraid of the dark, rather one needs to take into account if adults, on some level, are the ones who are afraid of the dark. And, it is that fear, our fear, that makes children believe that the dark is something to be afraid of. Although, it can also be that children are afraid of something entirely different.

Children may not be afraid of separating with light, rather separating with their guardians. In a period of vulnerability, prone to a prying world, children are not only attached to their caregivers, they are in dire need of them. It takes time to establish that separation is ok and that darkness is just an element in an ocean of many others. Its absence is not necessary to induce calm in the long run. It is more likely that caregivers, intentionally or unintentionally, offer a light, in a lamp or glowing stickers, as a reminder that they are there as opposed to an acknowledgement that it is ok to be afraid of the dark.

Humanity needs each other more than light in darkness.