Extreme Understanding 
Jenny Diski
As any adult can tell you – or any adult not given over entirely to mawkish and convenient notions of innocence – children are born spies. Every parent (previously an independent individual pursuing their own interests and desires) knows: a child arrives and it starts to watch you. You are never alone again, not really. There is someone who has arrived and will not go away; who not only watches you but also possesses their own consciousness, has views, puts two and two together and understands more or less than you want them to, but either way distorts the picture you have of your life.
Subscribers to the print edition can log in to view the entire article. For information about subscribing to the London Review of Books click here. This article and the back issue are also available for purchase online. Buy this article / Buy this back issue
Jenny Diski is writing a book about St Helena. A novel, Apology for the Woman Writing, is coming out in November.
Other articles by this contributor:
Don’t think about it · The Trouble with Sonia Orwell
A keen horseman with a new pair of green suede chaps is guaranteed to ride into the sunset · A Slight and Delicate Creature: The Memoirs of Margaret Cook
XXX · Doing what we’re told
Seriously Uncool · Susan Sontag
Hang on to the doily · Catherine M.
A Long Forgotten War · Jenny Diski writes about Promise of a Dream: A Memoir of the 1960s by Sheila Rowbotham
Diary · On Not Liking South Africa
It’s so beautiful · V is for Vagina
print layout
tell a friend