Welcome to the world of Darrique Barton.

There is really so much to say and, thank goodness, it seems the internet has boundless space to record them. I’ll not bore everyone with the trivialities of my own perspectives on current events, history, the future, yet share with you the interesting tidbits I’ve garnered from conversations with my peers, friends, family, and complete strangers. It is, after all, these input devices that often develop our own viewpoints.

Take my neices and nephews, for example. I have 7 of them and they range from 22 (who has her own son who is 2) to a just-turned 3 year-old. I focus a lot of my time and energy on these fascinating beings because they’ll teach me a great deal about myself when I was around their age (since I can’t seem to remember much of it myself) and because their perspectives, development, and passions will formulate much of what the 21st century is to be.

Keep in mind I have no kids of my own. So my interaction and ‘study’ of these amazing creatures has a skew to it. I love them all to death, but I can hand them back to their parents and go home at the end of the day. So a parental viewpoint tends to be more focused on individual personality of their child. While they are family, the things that they do and say do not have as direct an impact on me, as they would a parent.

Today’s subject is sharing. I learn more and more every day from my nieces and nephews. I had the opportunity to dine with my brother, sister-in-law, and my two nephews, ages just 3 and almost 5. At the end of dinner the two get to enjoy one piece of their Halloween candy (yep, there’s still a HUGE bowl of it) or another dessert. The older chose to indulge in half and English muffin with jam and the younger some strange sour candy which I’m sure has no ingredients either of them can pronounce. The little one finished all but one of his delights when the older started to bawl really loud. We all reacted with confusion as he seemed to be enjoying his own after-dinner sugar-high. He made us aware that he too wanted a sour candy and that the little one needed to learn to share. NOW. It just wasn’t fair that his little brother eat all of those delicious confections without sharing them with him. When his mother pressed him on why he expected is younger to share with he had not shared any of his own, he replied without even missing a beat: “because it is his job to share his candy with me, not the other way around.”

I thought a lot about this exchange on my way home. I wondered where in the introduction and development of the concept of sharing the older brother interpreted it as a one-way street. I’ve been around them a great deal over the last two years and know that it’s not been something espoused in him home life. Then I thought about us adults. I pondered what someone who is in their 20′s, 30′s, or 40′s may be like if they prescribed to this “it’s fun to share” doctrine, provide I’m not the one doing the sharing.

What do y’all think?